Trump Indicted!

[Core Imposter]

Except that Biden is in better physical shape than Trump. And Kamala Harris is in better physical shape than either of them.

Yeah, but we'd have to hold our breath during the campaign. We've had politicians killed for far less motive.

This would be like the worst scenario imaginable.

 

[Birdjaguar]

here we go:

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) announced late Tuesday he will file paperwork to nominate former President Trump to be the next Speaker of the House.

“This week, when the U.S. House of Representatives reconvenes, my first order of business will be to nominate Donald J. Trump for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives,” Nehls said in a statement. “President Trump, the greatest President of my lifetime, has a proven record of putting America First and will make the House great again.”

MSN

www.msn.com

Do we need a "Trump for Speaker of the House" thread?

If you want to start it.

 

[Bamspeedy]

In the UK, there was a principle established long ago called double
jeopardy that if a person was accused and tried of a crime and acquitted,
they could not be re-arrested and tried again for the same crime.
There were exceptions e.g. if it became clear that there had
been jury tampering, and later on if significant evidence not
available at the time of the trial was found e.g. DNA, for a re-trial.

Now the thing about Donald Trump was that he was acquitted by
the Houses on impeachment. I therefore question the validity of him
being separately and repeatedly charged for what are essentially
minor details of the same thing, i.e. trying to overturn an election result.

We all know he was guilty but he got acquited but trying to overturn an
impeachment result doesn't seem to me to have a much higher moral ground.

The anti-Trump strategy seems to be to get as many states as possible
to machine gun him with as many charges as possible in the hope that
one will get him or get one of his subordinates done for lying (what lawyers
are paid to do) and then offer them a deal where punishment is waived
if they incriminate Donald Trump, a path likely to result in false testimony.

This may or may not work, but it is high risk as the public may get bored.
A better anti-Trump strategy would be to find a good younger candidate.

Double Jeopardy (at least in the US) only applies for criminal cases. An impeachment process may be about him being accused of doing 'wrong' things, but it isn't criminal (he wasn't facing prison/jail....his freedom wasn't based on the verdict of the impeachment). There isn't double jeopardy in civil cases for example (that I know of, but I'm not a lawyer)...you commit one act that injures 10 people, you could have 10 lawsuits against you, each treated separately. You cause the death of one person you could have 10 different lawsuits from that person's family members if the victim was from a large family.

The thing about committing the same crime in multiple jurisdictions is all those jurisdictions can go after you, and each crime committed within those separate borders are separate crimes. Trying to overturn Georgia's results is a different act than trying to overturn Arizona's results because each result he tried to overturn required different actions, thus making them different crimes.

 

[FriendlyFire]

And let us look at some of the detail, Donald Trump is accused of exaggerating the value of his assets in commercial dealings with banks.
I m sure he did, but so what, that is quite common practice for oligarchs and corporates; sensible banks check what the borrower claims rather accept
their word. The thing is that case is being pushed solely to impede Donald Trump's re-election chances, i.e. for political reasons by politicians.
So we have politicians involved in judicial activity and judges involved in political trials, rendering the separation of power not quite so clear cut.

Weird watching someone defend fraudulent banking practices
Banks are allowed to leverage themselves like this since the loans are back by the Government and regulations are set to prevent this kind of fraud

Theres a political element, though given Trumps multiple bankruptcies and fraudulent hes been getting a lot of free passes.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Here's the DoJ's statement on the question of double jeopardy that you raise, @EnglishEdward.

 

[Takhisis]

If Trump becomes Speaker and then our VP dies Biden can't get a new VP confirmed without both houses. Then if Biden dies, Trump is president. Scary. It took 4 months for one VP to get confirmed in the past. Never happen before the election.

So, if he takes the job the Secret Service better get serious.

They did reportedly get serious when they prevented him from joining the rioters in January 2021.

Here's the DoJ's statement on the question of double jeopardy that you raise, @EnglishEdward.

Where?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Yes where @Gori the Grey ?

 

[madviking]

I think that's the joke

 

[EvaDK]

A quite entertaining and illuminating summary of the horror cabinet of clown lawyers in Trump's orbit; includes his co-conspiritors

 

[EnglishEdward]

... There isn't double jeopardy in civil cases for example (that I know of, ....

Wikipedia refers to:

Res judicata - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The thing about committing the same crime in multiple jurisdictions is all those jurisdictions can go after you, and each crime committed within those separate borders are separate crimes. Trying to overturn Georgia's results is a different act than trying to overturn Arizona's results because each result he tried to overturn required different actions, thus making them different crimes.

That is a perfectly valid interpretation, but other people may see it differently.

As I am English, I don't have a bone (vote) in the electoral debate, and may drop out of the thread for a while.

The only other thing I can say is that watching the USAians elect Donald Trump once was, amongst other things, quite comic.

But if they do it again, it will be tragedy.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Sorry All, I don't know why the link didn't post. I'll try to track it down. No. It's not a joke. Their baseline position is that you can still be charged for a crime for which you've been impeached without it being double jeopardy.

https://www.justice.gov/file/19386/download

 

[Lexicus]

This "double jeopardy" nonsense is a bit like saying I can't be tried for tweeting a death threat to AOC if the tweet gets ratio'd.

 

[Takhisis]

tl;dr you can be tried separately for the same facts in civil and criminal courts, as well as administrative and other procedures.

Anyway,

Donald Trump drops off Forbes 400 list of wealthiest people in the US​

He’s $300m shy of the cutoff, according to the magazine, though with an estimated $2.6bn he’s got plenty of pocket change

Donald Trump has dropped off the Forbes 400 ranking of the wealthiest people in the US for the second time in three years, the magazine announced on Wednesday as the former president’s business fraud trial continued in New York.

“Donald Trump is no longer rich enough for the country’s most exclusive club,” Forbes said.

“With an estimated $2.6bn fortune, he is $300m shy of the cutoff for the Forbes 400 ranking of America’s richest people, the annual measurement that Trump has obsessed over for decades, relentlessly lying to reporters to try to vault himself higher on the list.”

Spoiler :

According to Forbes, a drop of $600m in Trump’s net worth was mostly down to problems and plummeting value at Truth Social, the social media platform he set up after being ejected from Twitter and Facebook over the January 6 attack on Congress.

Trump’s real estate portfolio, on which he built his name before entering politics in 2015, has also suffered.

“There is a bright spot in Trump’s portfolio,” the magazine added. “As fewer people spend time in the office, more are goofing off on the golf course.”

Business at Trump golf courses has rebounded, Forbes said, after falling during his time in the White House.

Valuations of golf courses are, however, among matters under scrutiny in Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York, where the judge has already ruled that the mogul “clearly [made] fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business”.

Letitia James, the attorney general of New York state, is seeking $250m and professional penalties against defendants including Trump and his adult sons.

Trump, 77, has fallen off the Forbes list before – first in 1990, when his real-estate empire was struggling. He also fell off the list in 2021, in the aftermath of his chaotic presidency and amid the Covid pandemic. He returned to the list in 2022.

“Make no mistake,” the magazine said then. “Trump is extremely rich.

A year on, Trump is also in extreme legal trouble. Facing a civil defamation suit arising from a rape allegation a judge said was “substantially true”, he must also answer 91 criminal charges regarding state and federal election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments.

Nonetheless, he retains wide leads in Republican presidential polling and is the overwhelming current favorite to face off against Joe Biden in the 2024 race for the White House.

Observers seized on Trump’s latest Forbes reverse for a little schadenfreude.

Adam Klasfeld, senior legal correspondent for the Messenger, pointed out that in opening statements in the New York fraud case, counsel for the state attorney general “cited the Forbes billionaires list specifically as one of the motives for Trump inflating his net worth on financial statements”.

Harry Litman, a former federal prosecutor turned columnist, said the bad news for Trump contributed to a “portrait of an autocrat in free fall”.

I think it is only fitting that I post this here video then.

 

[madviking]

all of those rich lists are just pure haruspicy--they make up numbers that no real basis in reality

 

[Takhisis]

Well, yes:

According to Forbes, a drop of $600m in Trump’s net worth was mostly down to problems and plummeting value at Truth Social, the social media platform he set up after being ejected from Twitter and Facebook over the January 6 attack on Congress.

Trump’s real estate portfolio, on which he built his name before entering politics in 2015, has also suffered.​

It's just made-up numbers. The capitalisation of such a firm depends on its never being sold, because if you sell a large enough chunk of it all at once the value of the entire stock plummets across the board.

 

[Core Imposter]

So you guys agree that Trump's valuations of his holdings are as valid as any others?

 

[Takhisis]

So you guys agree that Trump's valuations of his holdings are as valid as any others?

How much tax does he want to pay on them?

Because he's in for both tax fraud and business fraud, the way he's going.

 

[Lexicus]

Schroedinger's valuation?

 

[Gori the Grey]

So you guys agree that Trump's valuations of his holdings are as valid as any others?

His companies have been put into a receivership and will eventually be sold off. I think at that point their values will be public information.

We'll shortly know how much Trump was actually worth.

Over the last couple of weeks, we've been getting values that can let us guess at his levels of exaggeration. He recently petitioned for MaL to be valued at 22 million for tax purposes and Palm Beach agreed. He's now making public statements claiming the property is worth 1.5 billion. It would seem he tends to exaggerate his wealth by about 70 times. He previously claimed to Forbes that he was worth 6 billion, so he's probably worth about 80 million.

 

[RobAnybody]

tl;dr you can be tried separately for the same facts in civil and criminal courts...

see also: OJ Simpson