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I don’t care if he’s guilty as charged. Everyone who’s done anything guilty of something.
I do think he broke some norms with regards to these documents. But are they breaking bigger norms by charging him? I’m reminded that Hillary probably broke some laws with document security and Biden held on to some classified documents.
Even if you assume he’s 100% guilty we all break laws all the time and prosecutorial discretion etc don’t get charged. How do I know this isn’t something ignored for ex-potus and not something that matters because “Trump is a really bad man”. Lawfare etc especially when Trump loves breaking norms himself and probably should have just returned the docs.
I’m still reminded of other prosecutorial norms not being followed like Flynn being attacked on a Logan Act violation which every new administration breaks and had never been prosecuted before. And his NYC cases all seem to be “novel legal theories” or things no one prosecutes but Trump.
So this is weird because Trump breaks norms so I don’t know if they are breaking norms prosecuting him on a lawfare way.
Ya that’s what I’m getting with “norms”. But if say Obama told them to fuck off im keeping the documents would they charge him? I’m guessing now. But then the thing is outside of norms because everyone just returns the documents.
Also what about Hunter? They’ve had the goods on him for a long ass time. He isn’t even a candidate. Why isn’t he charged?
Not quite the gotcha you think it is when there are multiple whistleblowers saying the DOJ is purposely slowing the process.
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Here’s my summary of your posts.
Things that don’t matter to a lot of us because Trump has been targeted by lawfare too much.
“GWB or Obama would have been charged if did same thing.” That’s actually what I think is the most important thing in this case. And to be honest I don’t know how to judge that comment. If that’s true then he should go to jail. If it’s not then he shouldn’t.
You know we have a rule where you're supposed to respond (at least, first) to the things other people have actually said, before trying to impute things to them.
Looking over your user history, I want to think that someone who has received warnings against low effort posting from Zorba, Amadan, and myself, then been banned by both Amadan and myself for continuing to make low effort posts, might stop making low effort posts.
If you can think of a way to encourage yourself to not make low effort posts, please share it with us when you return from your two week ban. Others should note that the length of this ban is a question of steady escalation for repeat behavior, not a comment on how bad this particular comment is in comparative terms.
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But of course Huadpe even acknowledged that Clinton got kid gloves not because her actions were more aligned with the law but because she lawfared better (I disagree with the lawfared better but that’s irrelevant).
So when it comes to norms there is in fact a difference. Clinton got more favorable treatment.
Ya I would agree you can’t prosecute Trump because he didn’t “lawfare” well. Otherwise then any non-establishment politician will get prosecuted.
He needs to do something categorically different. Which at the end of the day mostly means to me street crime. Which he won’t do.
The one thing you said below “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime”. In the specifics of this case he isn’t getting prosecuted for something random he’s getting prosecuted because he chose to break norms. Which makes this more complicated to me. He chose to create the crime. Which is different than sat prosecuting Flynn by digging up a Logan Act violation.
Any non-establishment politician that makes false statements to a court? Yeah?
I suspect an establishment politician who did that would be prosecuted too.
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The question is would they ever had even gone after the documents if it wasn’t Trump.
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If he has returned the documents the way the government wanted, they would have invented some other theory to indict him. I feel quite comfortable saying this because: Donald Trump has never been treated with "kid gloves"; other politicians have done the same or worse and never been charged; and this is what happened with Crossfire Hurricane, Russiagate, Impeachment, etc. Unprecedented levels of scrutiny on vague, never-defined accusations, that turn into process crimes when you outrageously don't let yourself get framed.
That is also the elephant in the room. There is a bit of “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” When you do countless and baseless investigations into someone eventually you’ll find something. That isn’t justice.
This is essentially what I believe. As long as he remains active in politics, and quite possibly even if he doesn't, the investigations will continue until they get him or he dies.
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I do think obstruction is probably the most serious issue here, but once again is that any different compared to Clinton destroying evidence under subpoena?
I don’t think instructing your lawyers to do illegal acts gives you attorney client privilege. I think the fraud/crime exception applies.
Yes, if a party destroys evidence you can’t prove what was on it. But that is why the destruction itself is a crime and you can make inferences.
Clinton got away not because she acted in a more sophisticated legal way but because she is a friend of the regime.
Yep hence my “friend of the regime”
point. There is a compelling equal protection of the law issue here. Yes, prosecutorial discretion is a key thing and generally doesn’t violate equal protection. But there is sufficient animus within the DOj and FBI to make a colorable case.
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Actually I think it is relatively easy to prove in that she basically decided what was and wasn’t relevant and destroyed the evidence to prove whether she was acting faithfully. If a defense to “destroying evidence” is “I didn’t think it was evidence and you can’t prove it because the evidence is gone” works, then you don’t have a viable legal system.
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That completely ignores the political benefits of the timing. I just can't take seriously any strictly legal analysis that ignores the political impacts.
Because you can smear him in the press. Which is exactly what happened. He’s was supposed to have all sorts of “top secret” documents. Even at one point mentioning nuclear secrets. I doubt the documents were anything all that important as if they even thought he had military secrets they would not have waited a year to search.
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