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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   28216 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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Today's SCOTUS opinions

I'd like to post a little about these as they come out over the next few weeks. One of you said you like themotte's legal takes not too long ago, so I'll give my utterly uninformed ones. If there are new opinions out, and I haven't made a thread, by all means, make one.

Cantero v. Bank of America, N.A.

Written by Kavanaugh, 9-0.

This case is rather obscure. It deals with the question of a law in New York, regulating banks. There are two types of banks, national and state banks. The question is whether the statutes applying to federal banks preempt those applying to state banks. Everyone agrees that they sometimes do. In this case, the court argues that the Second Circuit should have applied a different standard than they did (they should have applied "nuanced comparative analysis" instead of a "categorical test," following the wrong set of precedents), but does not give any opinion on how that should be decided in this case, just that it should be looked at again by the lower court with a different standard.

I know, I know, exciting start.

Thornell v. Jones

6-3. Alito writes for the majority, which the conservatives join. Sotomayor and Jackson each write dissents, of which Kagan joins the former.

In 1992, Jones committed two horrific murders: he beat his acquaintance Robert Weaver, Weaver's grandmother, and Weaver's seven-year-old daughter to death in order to take Weaver's $2000 gun collection.

Under Arizona law, this was weighed, with the aggravating factors (committing multiple murders in the offence, motivated by money, heinousness, and a young child), and the mitigating factors (Jones had underwent child abuse, began abusing drugs young, suffered brain damage, and received psychiatric treatments as a child), and sentenced Jones to death.

Jones then filed a habeas petition with the 9th circuit, which they grant. Under Strickland v. Washington, he must show that he had insufficient counsel, prejudicing the case against him, and that this would make it reasonable (that is, a substantial probability) that this would have changed the sentencing.

Alito argues that the 9th circuit was wrong for 3 reasons:

  1. It failed adequately to take into account the aggravating circumstances (in their initial opinion, altogether, and in their later opinion, without the weight that would be given by the Arizona judge)
  2. They apply a rule that courts may not assess strength of witness testimony
  3. They held that the Arizona court erred in attaching diminished weight to Jones' mental health conditions because they weren't connected to his actions in the murders.

(some of those sentences closely follow Alito's wording, don't come after me)

Alito then provides his own analysis of the case, considering the new evidence, and that it would be unlikely to cause any revisions (applying Strickland) to the Arizona courts judgments, because it's not really claiming all that much more, and is in the same categories, and so reverses and remands the case.

Sotomayor and Kagan agree that they should have considered aggravating factors, but did not think that Alito should have judged the merits of the specifics of the case (what I talked about in the preceding paragraph).

Jackson thought that the Ninth circuit acted sufficiently in their methodology, and just because they decided wrongly (per Alito) doesn't mean that they were procedurally wrong. Also, she disputes 1 and 2 above.

Legally, I don't have a clear enough view of what SCOTUS is willing to cover to judge whether the dissents are right.

My own (not legal) takeaways: What the heck are we doing as a country that we can't manage to carry out a death sentence 30 years after he was sentenced? Second, activist courts are really a problem. The liberal justices would all yield to those courts, as they misapply standards. If Jackson's right, their process suffices, even if they're entirely dishonest in their evaluation of the evidence. Third, I'm not a fan of a bunch of these mitigating factors. Being abused as a child shouldn't really be an argument against being put to death for murder.

NRA v. Vullo

Sotomayor (!) writes for a unanimous court. Gorsuch and Jackson each file concurrences.

Vullo, in her capacity of Superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services had pressured insurers to drop the NRA, saying that she'd found errors, but they wouldn't be prosecuted for them if they did so. Further, there were letters to businesses saying they should drop the NRA to minimise risk.

The court holds that this is illegal coercion, and violates the first amendment, by punishing the NRA for speech through government action. The indirectness of it does not change that.

Gorsuch writes to clarify that this means that some standard tests aren't always right.

Jackson thinks there is more to be said about whether there's a first amendment claim (so, I think, disagreeing with the majority), but agrees overall.

Vullo is interesting, but ultimately the court leaves qualified immunity on the table, the Second Circuit is almost certainly going to give her it, and almost any plausible future case will have some excuse for why it's just slightly different enough that they get qualified immunity too, and that makes it hard to care too much. The facts for the NRA to get here were very much outliers -- had Lockton been the slightest bit less NRA-friendly to start with, or James been the slightest bit more circumspect, and that balancing test becomes even harder to demonstrate.

It's better than the carte blanche for 'nice non-profit you have here, shame if something happened to it' the Second Circuit appeals court gave, and it's nice to see even Sotomayor willing to push back on lower courts doing this stuff, but it's more going to discourage overt acts at the margins over actually making anyone whole.

Jackson's argument is that the matter should have been handled as a retaliation case, rather than a censorship one. That's not quite a dissental, but it would be a much harsher standard to show in future or unrelated cases, and maybe even in future proceedings in this one would have made it easier to rebut.

Standard pattern with this court: don't let horrible principles formally stand, but let the bad actors use them and lower courts accept them anyway.

Thanks! I could tell that Jackson's was a meaningful dispute, but I just wanted to be done, and so didn't work it out exactly.

I think this deserves to be a top-level post for the next few weeks. Sort of like Trans-National Thursdays. Supreme Court Saturdays?

Well, they come out Thursdays, most of the time. Do you really want to wait two days?

Breaking news. It looks like the jury convicted Donald Trump in the "hush money" case.

This verdict will likely galvanize voters come November – leading to record turnout among Republicans. I might even vote for the old rascal myself as I view this lawfare as both morally wrong and deeply destabilizing.

To make a prediction closer to home, we're now certain to cross 1000 posts on the weekly thread.

The most relevant point is made in several places and deserves its own discussion:

Trump is accused of using personal money for a campaign purpose.

  • His lawyer paid a hooker to sign an NDA, and when Trump reimbursed him it was marked this as a legal expense.

  • The accusation is that this is a campaign finance violation because this benefited his campaign and therefore should have been marked as such.

However, it is not illegal to pay somebody to sign an NDA. Suppose Trump had done what the NY state prosecutor is implying he should have done, which would be to use campaign funds to pay off this hooker.

Would it be better? That seems unlikely.

The regime sees Trump as illegitimate. Because of this any political action he takes is illegitimate.

The most relevant point is made in several places and deserves its own discussion:

Trump is accused of using personal money for a campaign purpose.

And without getting into the sleazy details, this is something that every sentient person assumes every candidate does to some extent, and Trump is the only one signled out for it.

Talk to any small business owner/gig worker, and the lines between personal and business spending are sort of vaguely (mis)understood and largely unobserved. You should see the uncomfortable faces when the bookkeeper in our local small business circle talks about this subject. Everyone is bad at this this. At times, it seems almost impossible to dilligently keep track of these things in accordance with the law. The general assumption is that small, non-malicious fudging of that line will be overlooked. This kind of petty gotcha on Trump on this subject is unlikely to substantively move the needle for anyone already sympathetic to him.

What would be the legally acceptable way to quietly pay off a mistress like this? If a Pro-Trump Super PAC had paid Daniels instead of Cohen/Trump personally, would that be unambiguously legal? If the National Enquirer had caught-and-killed the story with David Pecker’s personal funds instead of merely informing Cohen, would that be unambiguously legal? What if it was simply a friend of Trump who paid, with no business relationship to the president? A surface level reading would suggest not, because by these trial standards that would technically involve more than $2700 or whatever going to something that could possibly benefit the campaign.

A personal payment from Donald Trump to Stormy Daniels would not be an issue under campaign finance law (spending your own money on your own campaign is 1st-amendment protected activity) and would not generate any business records that could become the basis of a "falsifying business records" charge.

Why didn't Trump do it that way? Partly because his personal lawyer was a lying crooked sack of shit who couldn't give him decent legal advice. Mostly because he doesn't think that laws apply to him in the way they do to little people.

Mostly because he doesn't think that laws apply to him in the way they do to little people.

They don't, actually, because these charges have never been used against anybody before in the history of the world.

Err wot? Falsifying business records is charged in almost every white-collar criminal indictment in New York.

See here or here for surveys on the issue, or here for an example of a criminal defence firm which holds out this kind of charge as an important practice area.

I agree that there is a bit of a reach to get to felony falsification in this case - the point I was making was that Donald Trump clearly committed a misdemeanour completely unnecessarily (and may have committed a felony depending on a legal technicality he didn't feel the need to ask a competent lawyer about) because he didn't care.

Trump has been doing business in New York for 40 years and the only crime they can charge him on is something nobody has ever been charged for before -- "falsifying records" is one thing, this is falsifying records used totally for internal purposes, as though he committed fraud upon himself (this has been discussed to death in other comments in this thread by now).

There is no one who has ever been charged with anything similar to this. You want to make it sound as though Trump is contemptuous of law because he described money paid to his lawyer as legal expenses, for arranging an NDA, which is legal, with a porn star, which is legal. If Trump was as contemptuous of law as you suggest, maybe there would be other bookkeeping crimes to charge him with that don't involve felony upcharges on underlying crimes that are not specified.

Trump has been doing business in New York for 40 years and the only crime they can charge him on

The business-related crimes Trump has been successfully bought to justice as a result of the NY AG-led investiagtion include:

I am not including the stuff that is plausibly "three felonies a day bullshit" like housing discrimination, SEC penalties for improper disclosures when one of Trump's companies was publically traded, antitrust litigation, or ordinary commercial litigation of the type any sufficiently large company gets involved in regularly.

The Trump University scam probably isn't a crime, and it looks like Letitia James brought the loan fraud allegations in civil fraud because she couldn't prove mens rea against individual Trump org executives beyond reasonable doubt. But that is 3 and a half serious crimes of which someone in the Trump organisation is factually guilty, and the evidence points to it being the boss.

The District Attorney’s press office and its flaks often proclaim that falsification of business records charges are “commonplace” and, indeed, the office’s “bread and butter.” That’s true only if you draw definitional lines so broad as to render them meaningless. Of course the DA charges falsification quite frequently; virtually any fraud case involves some sort of fake documentation.

But when you impose meaningful search parameters, the truth emerges: the charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor – in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere – has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever. Even putting aside the specifics of election law, the Manhattan DA itself almost never brings any case in which falsification of business records is the only charge.](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-convicted-but-prosecutors-contorted-the-law.html)

((It's not clear that the underlying crime was actually the federal campaign finance matter; the jury instructions just reference 17-152, which itself requires "unlawful means", and the judge verbally instructed the jury to pick any combination of FECA, other paperwork record violations, or state tax laws.))

Those surveys tend to back this up: the lightest or attempted theft in this page is still 300 USD in Ramirez, Murray in the multiple thousands, Kirkland for 350k USD(!). I can't find exact numbers for Freeland or Holley, but napkin math puts even a short duration puts it around 200 USD/month and Freeland covering multiple months, and Holley's insurance fraud claims are almost certainly closer to Murray than Ramirez. In this case, the erroneous classification probably increased, rather than decreased, Trump's final tax payment.

There is a real question of whether the record was in fact false. If my contractor builds my deck and pays out of pocket for materials, would it be a false record if I label my payment to him as construction expense even if it reimbursed in large part those expenses?

I think the Trump defense mangled this argument a bit but we don’t have to.

Trump is accused of using personal money for a campaign purpose.... The accusation is that this is a campaign finance violation because this benefited his campaign and therefore should have been marked as such.

It should be noted that this "accusation" is not actually in the indictment.

It is part of the jury instructions (at least as reported by AP), and the modifier (doing it as part of a campaign finance violation) was one pathway towards treating this as a felony.

Dark day. There will be nothing more destabilizing for democracy and American government than making every president a Caesar who either crosses the Rubicon or dies in jail.

Trump will win on appeal and this case is such nonsense it will boost his election prospects. But the precedent is set and we will reap it someday.

How will he win on appeal? The NY courts are against him (or they would have stopped a lot of this stuff with interlocutory appeals) and there's no substantial Federal question.

There will be nothing more destabilizing for democracy and American government than making every president a Caesar who either crosses the Rubicon or dies in jail.

Why would a Democrat president need to worry about "dying in jail" under his Democrat successor? And you won't have to worry about a Republican president becoming a Caesar to avoid that fate when there's never going to be another Republican president.

Permanent Dem rule is here. There is no lawful, nor even non-violent, path left for Red Tribe. And I've expressed my doubts about the effectiveness of violent measures, so, once again, I conclude we're doomed.

It seems to me that it is better to set a precedent that criminals get convicted of crimes over a precedent that politicians cannot be convicted of crimes.

  • -21

If Trump had committed any, maybe I would agree with you. What's your opinion about Caesar?

The beginning of the Imperial era in Roman politics led to civil war over the imperial seat which was the true cause of the fall of the Roman Empire.

Authoritarian dictators are an inherently incompetent and violent form of government, and anyone who aspires to return us to savage government is factually incorrect about an important section of human history.

  • -20

The beginning of the Imperial period was marked by an unusually long period of peace and prosperity thanks to the long reign of Augustus. By contrast, the end of the Republican period was dominated by Romans fighting Romans in a series of bloody civil wars. It turns out that having one military strongman in charge of the polity works a lot better than having two competing military strongmen fighting over the polity.

The violence of the late Republic started long before the Imperial period. It started when extremist Roman partisans decided that their political ideologies were more important than unity and started using whatever means necessary to win - like exploiting the criminal justice system to attack their political opponents. Sound familiar?

I'm not arguing for Caesar. I'm arguing that throwing politicians in jail for nothing crimes will create Caesar.

You seem to believe this was a "nothing" crime in which case I believe your opinion is motivated reasoning.

Felonies are regarded as a special class of crime.

Donald Trump is a convicted felon. Politicians who commit felonies should be punished for them.

Otherwise I think you are advocating for politicians who are able to commit felonies and escape punishment.

It seems to me that you are either in denial about the seriousness of the crime that Donald Trump, convicted felon, has been convicted of by a jury of our peers, or you want Trump to be immune from prosecution for serious crimes: you are arguing for Caesar.

Please explain what is so serious about the crime of which Trump was (unjustly) convicted.

Dictators really aren’t that bad. Rome was great under the emperors for very long periods of time. Assad was better than before. Franco was better than the communists. China has done fairly well. The Saudis are the most functional country in the ME outside Israel. Singapore. It’s heavy America propaganda that dictators = bad.

Yeah, most of the Asian Tigers were driven by what would be considered dictators in charge and have since had larger struggles when going towards manifesting democracy in the 80s/90s

The beginning of the Imperial era in Roman politics led to civil war over the imperial seat which was the true cause of the fall of the Roman Empire.

Authoritarian dictators are an inherently incompetent and violent form of government, and anyone who aspires to return us to savage government is factually incorrect about an important section of human history.

Dictators provide no benefit over a temporary executive. Removing a bad dictator requires a civil war which cripples a polity for an entire generation.

This is just functionally wrong. Whether dictators are net good is an interesting question.

But they do provide benefits. Internalizing deadweight costs is one thing they do better than Democracies.

The other area they can do better is not all societies have intellectual capabilities to implement a Democracy. You need a certain level of intelligence to succesfully monitor leaders in a Democracy.

The people will seek an emperor when they figure out that the oligarchy bureaucracy is uncontrollable otherwise.

Authoritarian dictators

Spoken like a true Roman. They don’t have monarchs dictators-for-life, they have Caesars, which is totally different.

The people will seek an emperor when they figure out that the oligarchy bureaucracy is uncontrollable otherwise.

Anyone who aspires to return us to savage government is factually incorrect about an important section of human history.

But isn’t it worse when innocent politicians are convicted of political crimes?

Trump was convicted by a jury of our peers. I trust their judgment. He's guilty.

He's a guilty politician convicted of a crime. A felony.

He's a convicted felon.

Facts don't care about your feelings.

  • -42

OJ Simpson was exonerated by a jury of our peers. I trust their judgment. He's not guilty.

Even if the case of OJ Simpson was a mistake, that does not mean that Trump's conviction is a mistake. This is Simpson's Paradox.

This is a very narrow appreciation of the case and zero appreciation of the context.

Prosecutorial discretion is employed literally everyday in America. And it is up and down the socioeconomic chain and goes left and right. In Baltimore, they sometimes decide not to prosecute multiple felons on gun charges because ... racism or something. When it comes to campaign finance laws, as I understand it, it's close to impossible to run a national level campaign without accidentally breaking the laws a few times - which is why these are almost always handled by the FEC with, at most, fines and public disclosures.

Alvin Bragg wanted to shoot his shot with this case and he did. As @jeroboam said, no one believes this case would've been brought against any other politician besides Trump.

So, while what happened inside the narrow walls of the courtroom may be all on the up and up (which, right now, I believe more than I doubt) ... and while a good deal of blame here should be on Trump's defense team for going full retard ... the facts are that targeted prosecutorial discretion brought a case into a courtroom that would've never made it off a legal pad in any other context. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, Mr. Shapiro.

The judge allowed testimony (Cohen’s plea deal) heavily prejudicial to Trump because the prosecution wanted to impeach its own witness (sure Jan) but wouldn’t allow Trump to introduce evidence that the DOJ and FEC looked at the alleged violation and passed. That seems on the up and up?

Or how there is literally no evidence that Trump was even thinking about the so called predicate literally none in evidence. Which means there should’ve been a directed verdict.

You seem to have more detailed awareness of the case, I'll admit that.

I'd like to point out I think we're on the same side, my guy.

Yes we are. My background is in law (though not litigation let alone criminal) so this has interested me greatly. Couple that with time on my hands due to paternity leave…I’ve gotten obsessive.

It's rare to see someone run afoul of the building consensus rule, but "no one believes..." is a clear example.

You're otherwise being reasonably level-headed, so I'll simply request--please don't make a habit of it.

Mods gonna mod, so I'm not mad about that.

But, is this selective enforcement?

Here's the post that I cited that uses the same language: https://www.themotte.org/post/1019/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/217119?context=8#context

As @jeroboam said,

Mod fail. Nobody’s perfect.

Sorry, I didn't realize you were directly quoting.

I'm not seeing any reports for @jeroboam's version, so either it was cleared by another mod, or it never came to our attention. Either way, the request applies to him.

Probably because I saw your post and reported it but did not notice or report the other post.

As @jeroboam said, no one believes this case would've been brought against any other politician besides Trump.

I believe this case would have been brought against other politicians besides Trump. A very similar case was brought against John Edwards. That case failed to secure a conviction, but it was nonetheless brought.

Unfortunately, I think citing the Edwards case proves my point ... it is very similar to the Trump case for a lot of not good reasons

Many in the Democratic Party legal establishment were baffled by Breuer’s decision to green light the case, particularly because of suspicions that partisan politics played a role in the aggressive pursuit of Edwards by federal prosecutors in North Carolina.

...

That unit came under protracted public criticism in recent years over what the Justice Department found was prosecutorial misconduct in the pursuit of then-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on charges he filed false ethics reports by omitting the value of gifts and renovations to his home.

...

As a result of failures in the Stevens case, which was brought during the Bush administration, Holder changed much of the Public Integrity Section’s leadership and ordered new training for prosecutors across the department in their responsibilities. Two prosecutors were also ordered briefly suspended after an internal probe.

...

Jurors also got an up-close look at the prosecution’s star witness, Andrew Young, the aide who falsely claimed paternity of Edwards’s and Hunter’s child. Records showed Young diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Edwards donors to pay for his own expenses and a pricey new home he was building in North Carolina.

...

The Justice Department said in 2009 that it would pursue criminal campaign finance cases only where there was “no doubt” that the FEC agreed the “underlying conduct” was illegal. No such finding appears to have ever been made in Edwards’s case, and at least one current commissioner said publicly that he doubted Edwards’s alleged actions were illegal.

...

U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Eagles excluded most evidence about the FEC’s views of Edwards’s case. However, jurors did hear the Edwards campaign’s compliance officer testify that she saw no requirement to report the payments related to his mistress and never heard from the FEC that they needed to be reported. The jury also heard a former FEC chairman say he’d never heard any discussion of whether payments to or for a mistress could be considered donations.

And this insane "history rhymes" banger:

Another problem that may have tripped up prosecutors: proving that Edwards knew his alleged actions were illegal, something the government must show to get a conviction in a campaign finance case.

It disproves your claim that the case would not have been brought except against Trump, which is the claim I was contesting.

More comments

That sounds like a just-so story brought by someone who is sad that their felon got convicted.

  • -10

Stop posting low effort comments like this. I'm actually happy to see someone defending the verdict and pushing back on what's clearly a dominant opinion here (this is completely orthogonal to what I personally think of the verdict) and it's unfortunate that the only pushback is coming from someone whose responses can mostly be summarized as "Neener neener."

Ok, you let twelve people from Manhattan do your thinking for you. What's your point?

Make it less personal and less condescending, please.

He said as he was made to kneel and shot in the back of the head by one of the roving gangs who have dominated public life for most of human history because men have realized again that attempting to succeed by 'following the rules' amidst anarcho-tyranny is fruitless

  • Courtesy

    • Make your point reasonably clear and plain.
  • -26

Bruh moment - I will just say the same thing again

Roving gangs have dominated public life for most of human history.

This is likely to be the case again, as men realize that attempting to succeed by 'following the rules' amidst anarcho-tyranny is fruitless.

Attempting to succeed by 'following the rules' is obviously fruitless because one of the most powerful, richest, successful, handsome, men on the planet was just convicted of 34 made-up felonies in a 'novel' theory of prosecution that only worked because the government can apparently convince most anyone to do anything these days, like convict the president of made-up crimes, or take multiple rounds of an untested gene therapy that at best doesn't work

I’m really drawing the line at handsome. I think this is hyperbolic. Trump has money, but he also had to declare bankruptcy on a casino and had several failed business including Trump University and Trump Steaks. He’s mostly a showman, PT Barnam shilling real estate and later red hats.

I'm unsure how to convey sincerity and gravity on the internet these days, but I'll try anyway. It is extremely wrong and prima facie unintelligent for anyone to pretend like Trump is not handsome and successful

He is still handsome, but here was his high school yearbook photo for reference - https://www.recordonline.com/gcdn/authoring/2016/04/15/NTHR/ghows_image-TH-3feabe0f-1a87-4175-82bd-def54ded6388.jpeg?width=440&height=660&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp

Here is an incomplete list of his companies that he owns and operates (the full list would be more than 500):

Sentient Jets LLC (Now/Known/As Trump Jets LLC) T International Realty LLC (dba Trump International Realty) The Donald J. Trump Foundation, Inc. The Trump Corporation The Trump Follies Member Inc. The Trump Equitable Fifth Avenue Company Trump 106 CPS LLC Trump 55 Wall Corp Trump 767 Management LLC Trump 845 LP LLC Trump 845 UN GP LLC Trump 846 UN MGR Corp Trump 846 UN MGR LLC fka 845 UN LLC Trump AC Casino Marks LLC Trump AC Casino Marks Member Corp Trump Acquisition Corp. Trump Acquisition, LLC Trump Books LLC Trump Books Manager Corp Trump Brazil LLC Trump Briarcliff Manor Development LLC formerly Briar Hall Development LLC Trump Canadian Services Inc Trump Canouan Estate LLC Trump Canouan Estate Member Corp Trump Caribbean LLC Trump Carousel LLC Trump Carousel Member Corp Trump Central Park West Corp Trump Chicago Commercial Member Corp Trump Chicago Commercial Manager LLC Trump Chicago Development LLC Trump Chicago Hotel Member Corp Trump Chicago Hotel Manager LLC Trump Chicago Managing Member LLC Trump Chicago Member LLC Trump Chicago Residential Member Corp Trump Chicago Residential Manager LLC Trump Chicago Retail LLC Trump Chicago Retail Manager LLC Trump Chicago Retail Member Corp Trump Classic Cars LLC Trump Classic Cars Member Corp Trump Commercial Chicago LLC Trump Cozumel Corp Trump Cozumel LLC Trump CPS Corp Trump CPS LLC Trump Delmonico LLC Trump Development Services LLC Trump Development Services Member Corp. Trump Drinks Israel Holdings LLC Trump Drinks Israel Holdings Member Corp Trump Drinks Israel LLC Trump Drinks Israel Member Corp Trump Education ULC Trump Empire State, Inc. Trump Endeavor 12 LLC Trump Endeavor 12 Manager Corp Trump EU Marks Member LLC Trump EU Marks Member Corp The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative LLC (fka Trump University CA LLC) Trump Ferry Point LLC Trump Ferry Point Member Corp Trump Florida Management LLC Trump Florida Manager Corp. The Trump Follies LLC Trump Fort Lee LLC Trump Fort Lee Member Corp Trump Golf Acquisition LLC Trump Golf Coco Beach LLC Trump Golf Coco Beach Member Corp Trump Golf Management LLC Trump Home Marks Trump Home Marks Member Corp Trump Ice LLC Trump Ice Inc Trump Identity LLC Trump Identity Member Corp Trump International Development LLC Trump International Development Member Corp Trump International Golf Club LC Trump International Golf Club Scotland Limited Trump International Golf Club Inc. Trump International Hotel and Tower Condominium Trump International Hotel Hawaii LLC Trump International Hotels Management LLC Trump International Management Corp Trump Kelowna LLC Trump Kelowna Member Corp. Trump Korean Projects LLC Trump Las Olas LLC Trump Las Olas Member Corp Trump Las Vegas Corp. Trump Las Vegas Development LLC Trump Las Vegas Managing Member LLC Trump Las Vegas Managing Member II LLC Trump Las Vegas Marketing and Sales LLC Trump Las Vegas Member LLC Trump Las Vegas Member II LLC Trump Las Vegas Sales & Marketing Inc. Trump International Hotel & Tower Las Vegas Unit Owners Association Trump Lauderdale Development 2 LLC Trump Lauderdale Development LLC Trump Management Inc Trump Marketing LLC Trump Marks Asia Corp Trump Marks Asia LLC Trump Marks Atlanta LLC Trump Marks Atlanta Member Corp Trump Marks Baja Corp Trump Marks Baja LLC Trump Marks Batumi LLC Trump Marks Batumi Member Corp Trump Marks Beverages Corp Trump Marks LLC Trump Marks Canouan Corp Trump Marks Canouan LLC Trump Marks Chicago LLC Trump Marks Chicago Member Corp Trump Marks Cozumel Corp Trump Marks Cozumel LLC Trump Marks Dubai Corp Trump Marks Dubai LLC Trump Marks Egypt Corp Trump Marks Egypt LLC Trump Marks Fine Foods LLC Trump Marks Fine Foods Member Corp Trump Marks Ft. Lauderdale LLC Trump Marks Ft. Lauderdale Member Corp Trump Marks Golf Swing LLC Trump Marks Golf Swing Member Corp Trump Marks GP Corp Trump Marks Holding LP (FKA Trump Marks LP) Trump Marks Hollywood Corp Trump Marks Hollywood LLC Trump Marks Istanbul II Corp. Trump Marks Istanbul II LLC Trump Marks Jersey City Corp. Trump Marks Jersey City LLC Trump Marks Las Vegas Corp Trump Marks Las Vegas LLC Trump Marks LLC Trump Marks Magazine Corp Trump Marks Magazine LLC Trump Marks Mattress LLC Trump Marks Mattress Member Corp. Trump Marks Menswear LLC Trump Marks Menswear Member Corp Trump Marks Mortoaoe Corp. Trump Marks Mtg LLC Trump Marks Mumbai LLC Trump Marks Mumbai Member Corp Trump Marks New Orleans Corp Trump Marks New Orleans LLC Trump Marks New Rochelle Corp. Trump Marks New Rochelle LLC Trump Marks Palm Beach Corp Trump Marks Palm Beach LLC Trump Marks Panama Corp Trump Marks Panama LLC Trump Marks Philadelphia Corp Trump Marks PhiladelPhia LLC Trump Marks Philippines LLC Trump Marks Phil ippine s Corp Trump Marks Products LLC Trump Marks Products Member Corp Trump Marks Puerto Rico I LLC Trump Marks Puerto Rico I Member Corp Trump Marks Puerto Rico II LLC Trump Marks Puerto Rico II Member Corp Trump Marks Punta del Este LLC Trump Marks Punta del Este Manager Corp The Donald J. Trump Company LLC The Trump Marks Real Estate Corp Trump Marks Real Estate LLC Trump Marks SOHO License Corp Trump Marks SOHO LLC Trump Marks South Africa LLC Trump Marks South Africa Member Corp Trump Marks Stamford Corp Trump Marks Stamford LLC Trump Marks Sunny Isles I LLC Trump Marks Sunny Isles I Member Corp. Trump Marks Sunny Isles II LLC Trump Marks Sunny Isles II Member Corp. Trump Marks Tampa Corp Trump Marks Tampa LLC Trump Marks Toronto Corp Trump Marks Toronto LLC Trump Marks Toronto LP (formally Trump Toronto Management LP) Trump Marks Waikiki Corp Trump Marks Waikiki LLC Trump Marks Westchester Corp. Trump Marks Westchester LLC Trump Marks White Plains Corp Trump Marks White Plains LLC Trump Miami Resort Management LLC Trump Miami Resort Management Member Corp Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck LLC Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck Member Corp Trump National Golf Club LLC Trump National Golf Club Member Corp Trump National Golf Club Washington DC LLC Trump National Golf Club Washington DC Member Corp Trump Ocean Manager Inc. Trump Ocean Managing Member LLC Trump Old Post Office LLC Trump On the Ocean LLC Trump Organization LLC The Trump Organization, Inc. Trump Pageants, Inc. Trump Palace Condominium Trump Palace/Parc LLC Trump Panama Condominium Management LLC Trump Panama Condominium Member Corp Trump Panama Hotel Management LLC Trump Panama Hotel Management Member Corp LLC Trump Parc East Condominium Trump Park Avenue Acquisition LLC Trump Park Avenue LLC Trump Payroll Chicago LLC Trump Payroll Corp. Trump Phoenix Development LLC Trump Plaza LLC Trump Plaza Member Inc. fka Trump Plaza Corp. Trump Procida Fort Lee LLC Trump Productions LLC (former Rancho Lien LLC) Trump Production Managing Member Inc Trump Project Management Corp. Trump Properties LLC Trump Realty Services, LLC (fka Trump Mortgage Services LLC (03) & Tower Mortgage Services LLC) Trump Restaurants LLC Trump RHF Corp Trump Riverside Management LLC Trump Ruffin Commercial LLC Trump Ruffin LLC Trump Ruffin Tower I LLC Trump Sales & Leasing Chicago LLC Trump Sales & Leasing Chicago Member Corp Trump Scotland Member Inc Trump Scotsborough Square LLC Trump Scotsborough Square Member Corp. Trump SoHo Hotel Condominium New York Trump Soho Member LLC Trump Toronto Development Inc Trump Toronto Hotel Management Corp. Trump Toronto Member Corp. (formaly Trump Toronto Management Member Corp) Trump Tower Commercial LLC Trump Tower Condominium Residential Section Trump Tower Managing Member Inc Trump Village Construction Corp. Trump Vineyard Estates LLC Trump Vineyard Estates Manager Corp. Trump Vineyard Estates Lot 3 Owner LLC (fka Eric Trump Land Holdings LLC) Trump Virginia Acquisitions LLC (fka Virginia Acquisitions LLC) Trump Virginia Acquisitions Manager Corp Trump Virginia Lot 5 LLC Trump Virginia Lot 5 Manager Corp. Trump Wine Marks LLC Trump Wine Marks Member Corp. Trump World Productions LLC y LLC Trump World Productions Manager Corp Trump World Publications LLC Trump/New World Property Management LLC Trump Castle Management Corp Trump Marks White Plains Corp Trump RHF Corp The Donald J. Trump grantor Trust – DJT is the Trustee Successor – Trustee is Donald J. Trump, Jr. The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust

Handsome?!

I will just say the same thing again

But clearer, and plainer. Thank you for abiding by the rules.

This is likely to be the case again, as men realize that attempting to succeed by 'following the rules' amidst anarcho-tyranny is fruitless.

This sounds to me like saying "we need to return to roving gangs in order to escape anarcho-tyranny." I reject the choice to return to roving gangs that you are espousing.

Attempting to succeed by 'following the rules' is obviously fruitless because one of the most powerful, richest, successful, handsome, men on the planet was just convicted of 34 made-up felonies

This is false. The felonies weren't made up. A jury of our peers convicted Trump of real felonies. He is a convicted felon. Facts don't care about your feelings.

I am not obligated to indulge your desire to return to roving gangs because your pet politician committed a crime. I'm against returning to roving gangs. Criminals should be punished in the court of law. That's what happened today.

American politicians get convicted of crimes all the time. Convicting governors is my home state's official pastime. Convicting Trump is not a red line except in the eyes of Trumpists.

  • -13

Probably not a bad time for a gut check about if you have similar feelings toward the "Trumpists" as the Spaniards did toward people who thought Franco wasn't an asshole for trying to stop the communists from taking over

Just sayin

Can you clarify what you mean? I don't really see the connection between Trump's crimes and the Spanish Civil War.

You bet, that is not unsurprising, and was kind of my point

You stated blandly that 'convicting governors' was your 'home state's official pastime'

Okay? Even in America which is the best country ever, most things have still kind of sucked most of the time. Governors are corrupt. Elections get stolen. Stuff happens

But there's a difference between those 'normal' things and taking the president to Rikers Island in chains to be strip searched. At some point, sometimes, someone does go too far and break the norms. And even though things have always kind of sucked most of the time, that destruction of norms can sometimes introduce profound change to an otherwise stable environment. And you get something like the Spanish Civil War

There was some absolute fuckery involved in the jury instructions in my opinion. I'm curious for some of the lawyers who post here to weigh in. As I understand it:

In order for there to be a felony conviction in NY, there has to be a modifier to the "falsifying business records" charge. So you have to falsify business records in pursuit of another crime.

There were three possible modifiers here for Trump to go from a misdemeanor charge to a felony.

  • falsifying other business records
  • breaking the Federal Election Campaign Act
  • submitting false information on a tax return

The slimy part (from my understanding) is that the judge said that they didn't actually have to agree on which of these modifiers he committed. You just had to get 12 people to agree that he had done something. So you could do 4, 4, and 4 all voting on each of the 3 options, with a majority disagreeing that he was actually guilty of the modifier.

Wild stuff.

AP seems to keep updating this page, which is very annoying, but it does explain the jury instructions: https://apnews.com/live/trump-trial-jury-deliberations-updates#0000018f-c551-d5ca-abff-d5fda72d0000

Interestingly, they say this is "fact check: false", and then go on to explain exactly what it is true, lol.

I’ve noted before the similarity of America’s adversarial justice system to the scientific process: a theory must be proposed, all evidence (experimental, forensic, eyewitness) must be logged, all reasonable alternative explanations must be falsified, and only then do we consider it proved, and thus, known.

But there’s a well-known way around the scientific method.

A focus on novel, confirmatory, and statistically significant results leads to substantial bias in the scientific literature. One type of bias, known as “p-hacking,” occurs when researchers collect or select data or statistical analyses until nonsignificant results become significant.

The judge told the jury to break into groups of four, and that each group only had to find one of the three modifiers to be true — and they didn’t have to be the same modifier. Judge Merchan has p-hacked misdemeanors into a felony!

I don’t think there was much evidence proffered to suggest there was any intent to falsify any other document or tax fraud.

I think that rationale there was so when Trump argues on appeal that such other crime can’t be federal election law the government could argue “guilty might not be because of election law.”

Regardless I expect overturned provided the defense didn’t waive too many arguments.

Who can Trump appeal it to who might overturn it?

Appeal to Heaven

He would probably have to make a 14th Amendment deprivation of due process claim to get it into federal court.

Ultimately some of the issues could get to SCOTUS

The slimy part (from my understanding) is that the judge said that they didn't actually have to agree on which of these modifiers he committed. You just had to get 12 people to agree that he had done something. So you could do 4, 4, and 4 all voting on each of the 3 options, with a majority disagreeing that he was actually guilty of the modifier.

This is accurate though, isn't it? As long as all 12 agree that "Trump falsified business records in pursuit of a crime" then he's guilty of that. The bigger question is how they could agree he did so in pursuit of a crime without him being indicted for that crime. This is the same whether there are 3 potential crimes or just 1. Is it a crime if he was never indicted? Sounds like it's a poorly worded law (maybe intentionally so) which was used to throw the book at him.

I think it's okay to say "if you charge someone with 34 crimes it's not because they committed 34 crimes"

Anyone remember that young black guy who leapt on the old lady judge and went to town on her before they pulled him off? He got charged with fucking everything, almost the definition of having the book thrown at him. Expulsion of bodily fluids toward a government official is one I remember in particular because he happened to let some spit out of his mouth while he whaled on her for a few seconds.

Now, there are few people on the planet earth that are more against young black criminals whaling on old ladies than me. But the fact he was charged with 57 crimes instead of 1 felony assault charge for the assault he actually committed is a gross and obvious miscarriage of justice. It's absurd. It's banana republic shit to charge a guy with 57 felonies for jumping on an old lady and hitting her for a few seconds before being pulled off.

Action starts at about 30 second mark

  1. His vertical is impressive
  2. "Nah, fuck that that!" is equivalent to "Leroy Jenkins!" as a call to immediately do something crazy.

Homeboy was like a flying squirrel, should've sent his ass to the paratroopers instead of prison

Oh, absolutely. I'm sort of a law anarchist at this point--the text of the law matters very little. Judges and lawyers have proved over and over again their willingness to creatively interpret laws to get whatever outcome they want, without consequences. Why should honest judges voluntarily limit themselves and abide by rules which other judges routinely ignore?

Trump legitimately did commit those crimes as far as I can tell. If he didn't, New York certainly has the power to write new laws which he is guilty of. To what extent must Trump abide by the legitimate rule of law of one state?

So far as I know, there is no law which prevents any state from writing a law intended to jail a presidential candidate. However, everyone recognizes this would be a terrible thing to do, so doubtless the supreme court would step in and fabricate some legal reasoning interpreting such a law as unconstitutional. It's harder to do so when, as in this case, the state does have a pretty good legal pretext to justify its legal decisions, and it's not extremely clear to everyone that the law was meant specifically to target one person.

We ceased to be a country of law a long time ago.

So far as I know, there is no law which prevents any state from writing a law intended to jail a presidential candidate

Legislative lawfare is prohibited (or at least made difficult) by Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 of the US Constitution: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”

Very easy to circumvent. Just pass a very broad law and only prosecute political enemies (perhaps along with a host of other undesirables).

Which, again, I'm sure would be ruled unconstitutional somehow, but not in any principled way.

No, because they can't say what the crime was. We don't convict people on "vibes", or at least we aren't supposed to.

In the worst case, you could have 8 people, a majority, thinking that he was innocent of the modifier. This should nullify it.

Not really. If 4 say he did X and only 4, then there is reasonable doubt he did X since 8 disagree. Same with Y and Z.

All 12 in this scenario agree that "Trump falsified business records in pursuit of a crime" though. I agree that if they disagree on what the crime was, that should be reasonable doubt, but legally I don't think it is reasonable doubt.

How far down the rabbit hole should they have to go for it to be the "same" crime? What if there are two separate alleged incidents that both fall under the same legal citation? Is that the same crime? Should that count? If half of the jury thinks that crime X happened on Monday, and the other half thinks that crime X happened on Thursday, should that count?

I totally agree, which is why I think the relevant factor is whether he's indicted for the crime. My point is that the choice between 3 options is just one failure mode of the law. The worse failure mode is that generally people can be punished for crimes without those crimes ever being prosecuted in court.

If only it were that simple.

There were 34 counts and Trump was found guilty on all 34. It's unbelievable that the jury could even understand the charges, let alone have a responsible deliberation on all 34 charges.

They are 34 iterations of the same charge. (12 monthly payments to Cohen, each of which involves a chequebook stub, a cancelled cheque, and an entry in the ledger, all of which are false business business records. Not sure why 2 of the 36 were not charged). This is stupid, but it is SOP when you are trying to try a case in the media (because it makes the charges look more serious) or trying to scare an unrepresented defendant into a plea bargain (because you can multiply the jail term you are threatening by 34, even though real criminal sentencing doesn't work like that).

You don't need to be any smarter than the average juror to understand this when it is explained to you. Absent a technical issue with one of the pieces of paperwork, the correct verdict is obviously the same on all 34 charges. Charging all of them does nothing except waste a small amount of the jury foreman's time saying "Guilty" over and over.

If twelve people agree that X and Y murdered Z and W, but they cannot by any means come to agree on whether X murdered Z and Y murdered W or converse, should they convict?

(Claude Opus says no, GPT-4 says yes.)

Isn't this kind of situation the whole justification for 'felony murder' provisions? Like if two people beat another guy to death but you can't prove who landed the killing blow, they both go down for felony murder anyways.

I would say so, sounds like a group of 2 people murdered another group of 2 and the details are being debated.

I just honestly cannot fathom this.

  1. It isn’t clear that the retainer / legal expense description was inaccurate. The prosecution never explained why Trump would pay more money to Cohen.

  2. It isn’t clear that Trump even knew how the expenses were recorded / supposed to be recorded. The evidence for this is Cohen’s testimony (with no corroborating evidence ). Cohen is a serial perjurer. How could you accept his testimony beyond reasonable doubt?

  3. There is literally zero evidence in the record that Trump was doing this because he was worried at all about campaign finance law. The prosecution was basically able to argue incorrectly the payment violated FECA and therefore the scheme was to hide this allegation. But there was zero evidence that anyone had even thought about campaign finance laws meaning per se the burden of proof was not met.

  4. The judge’s actions were beyond awful including allowing cohen to basically state what FEcA law is but not a literal former head of FEC.

You could convict any important person of a felony if you pierce attorney-client privilege and prosecute hard enough. "Three felonies a day" isn't literally true, but my guess is most billionaires commit at least three felonies a year.

I'm perfectly sure you can fathom this if you imagine that the cashier at the convenience store playing with their phone while pissed off when you ask for your receipt was on the jury. People in general are just not very smart, well read, worldly, or in any way aware of their surroundings.

'The government knows better than me and spent a lot of time and energy on this, so they're probably not wrong. Also, I've heard many times that Trump was a bad guy. So he must be guilty'

It is more that I am shocked our system stooped so low.

We fought a civil war and killed each other en masse because some lady who'd never been to the south wrote a book about slaves

Our system has always been low

But yes this is not good, agreed

The Civil War was good because it ended slavery.

The verdict against Trump is good because crimes should be punished even if they are committed by people with political power.

It isn’t clear that the retainer / legal expense description was inaccurate. The prosecution never explained why Trump would pay more money to Cohen.

It is in fact clear that the payment to Cohen was to reimburse him for paying off Stormy Daniels. Trump confessed on twitter.

This is why every lawyer advises their client to shut the hell up.

Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA.

What would you call a monthly retainer for one of your lawyers creating an NDA if not "legal fees"?

It would be an interesting defence to say that the reimbursement was in fact legal fees while still being a reimbursement, but that's not the defence Trump chose to raise. He chose to argue that Cohen paid Daniels $130k of his own money with no agreement to be repaid.

The payment to Stormy was for about 135k. Trump paid Cohen around 420k. So no it wasn’t solely reimbursement.

Fortunately, there were handwritten notes explicitly laying out what the money was all for. Exhibit 35 has you covered.

It was $130k reimbursement for Stormy Daniels, $50k reimbursement for Red Finch, that 180k total got doubled to make Cohen whole for the income tax he would need to pay, and then they gave Cohen an extra $60k as his profit for doing this.

they gave Cohen an extra $60k as his profit for doing this.

Sounds kind of like legal expenses, him being Trump's lawyer and all.

If I hire a contractor to build me a deck, then log the total bill as 'building expenses', am I committing fraud for not putting down 'lumber', 'nails', 'wages', and 'contractor margins' on my own books?

I certainly wouldn't recommend arguing in court that the contractor built your deck of his own accord and that you didn't ask him to do it.

Interestingly there was a case like this in BC awhile back -- it seemed like some contractors were trying to curry favour with the premier (who they knew personally), so they built him a deck and then refused to send him a bill!

I don't think it ever went to court, although he did get voted out over it. (among other things)

In this situation, I suppose cutting the guy a cheque for what you think the services were worth (whether he likes it or not) is kind of the right thing to do -- otherwise it looks like a bribe.

Yes my point. It wasn’t solely reimbursement. Instead it easily could be described as legal expenses under a retainer.

Okay, so what? The prosecution did not claim it was solely reimbursement.

If I pay you $100 for a stick of chocolate and some cocaine, the fact that it's legal to buy and sell chocolate does not mean that I can't be prosecuted for purchasing the cocaine.

The big difference is that reimbursement is not illegal (unlike cocaine). Paying for legal services and reimbursing your lawyer for payments he is making on your behalf is perfectly encapsulated as a legal expense. Could they have broken it down further (ie legal expense for service and for reimbursement)? Sure. But that doesn’t make the overall category (ie legal expense) fraudulent.

Again, that would have been an interesting argument for Trump to make, but he did not make it. His position was that Cohen was lying by claiming to have been reimbursed.

It's very easy for a jury to conclude that "legal fees" do not encapsulate reimbursement in a case where the defendant is continuing to maintain that they do not.

More comments

That sounds to me like a laymen interpretation of the case. I trust the jurors to come to a decision about whether or not a crime was committed.

  • -29

What an absurd response. You don’t respond to anything. Basically just said I disagree.

it's better to just report/downvote the troll, don't feed them.

I did after he kept or she keep going on

I do disagree, and I don't believe that every opinion or argument is worth the trouble of addressing.

You're a layman. Speaking speculatively. Engaging in motivated reasoning.

Trump is a convicted felon.

He was convicted by a jury of our peers.

Facts don't care about your feelings.

Not a lay person but keep on keeping on

My only real take on this is that I wish Republican politicians talking about Trump's civil liberties had the same energy for the rest of us.

"He was convicted on the testimony of a felon! Who only turned on him for a plea deal!" Cry me a river dickhead. This is a routine dance across the country in courtrooms from coast to coast. When a normal citizen's defense attorney tries that, the prosecutor gets up and gives the same line about "I wish I had nicer witnesses, but the defendant hangs out with felons, so felons are the people who know what happened." Every damn day. Trump has a very limited ability to gain credibility by accusing his lawyer he chose of being a slimeball.

Prosecutorial overreach has impacted thousands of Americans, where's this energy for them? Where was Mike Johnson when Aaron Swartz was hounded to death? When Assange was pinned on bullshit charges? When our prisons were filling up with people who plead down to felonies when cops lied about having witnesses, and prosecutors told them to take this deal or risk dying in prison?

Don't take your political movement that's spent decades building a state with the power to imprison citizens on a whim, and get all shocked Pikachu when one of your oxes gets gored.

Don't take your political movement that's spent decades building a state with the power to imprison citizens on a whim

The reason Trump exists is because conservatives are dissatisfied with the fruits of the last decades of conservatism. Your post reads to me like, "Trump supporters claim to hate bad things, but if that were true, they'd hate these other things that are also bad!"

Don't take your political movement that's spent decades building a state with the power to imprison citizens on a whim

The reason Trump exists is because conservatives are dissatisfied with the fruits of the last decades of conservatism. Your post reads to me like, "Trump supporters claim to hate bad things, but if that were true, they'd hate these other things that are also bad!"

Trump voters I know of speak glowingly of Nayib Bukele's law and order in El Salvador, which is to say, arbitrary roundups on police discretion.

Whether supporting uncuffing the police for crackdowns on violent crime can coexist rationally with opposing selective prosecution of political enemies is difficult to say. I'm not sure. It seems it should be possible to square those two stances, but I can see why @FiveHourMarathon sees it as obvious hypocrisy.

El Salvador went from a lawless shithole run by cartels to the safest country in Central America. What does locking away murderous criminal gangs have to do with what we're talking about? FHM's comment is about the growing power of the state to imprison anyone. The El Salvador case is simple, don't join a gang that kills people!

That and the gangs helpfully announce who they are by putting a bunch of distinctive tattoos on their bodies. I’d wager that for every 1000 incarcerated there might be one innocent person

There was an old trope on neoreactionary forums, I don't know if it was common in rationalist spaces, that went like this: First Peace, then Order, then Justice, then Law. They form a hierarchy, you can't have one without first having those that came before. Trying to have Law when you don't have Justice first doesn't work, for example, because without Justice the Law is just a series of rules. And likewise, you don't have Justice without Order, because how could any secure justice be acheived if people are fighting in the streets?

By this argument, I think it's perfectly fair to support draconian state brutality in El Salvador, and worry about state brutality in the US.

Totally agree.

Also, murdering anyone who wears those tattoos without going through the necessary gang initiations. I could see the false-positive rate being a little higher, and I'm skeptical that El Salvador's actual murder rate has dropped as far as the reported murder rate, but a lot of the due process concerns are... misplaced or based on poor understandings of the environment (or, conversely, what due process looks like in the United States).

The point is that El Salvador achieved that by not stressing too much about absolutely proving that the people they were locking up were in fact murderous criminals.

I think that's a perfectly fine public policy choice - the old saw about "better to let ten guilty go free than punish one innocent" is a nice line but it's completely reasonable for a country with extreme crime problem to say "actually no, we're not gonna let the ten guilty go free".

But of course if you're happy to be gung-ho about locking up the people who seem bad and not being super-meticulous about making sure they get the absolute duest of process, it does seem hypocritical to complain when that standard gets applied to the con man heading your party.