Donald J Trump: Rip Van Winkle edition

[superuberbob]

Dems might see not putting Trump in prison and negotiating a lighter sentence as a way to avoid facing retribution.

Of course Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie and Biden goes to jail next because lol Dems

[mosdef]

Republicans have made it crystal clear that they don’t think they have to wait for Dems to break norms before they will break norms. If they see the opportunity to prosecute Biden with a crime then they will do so, no matter what Dems do or don’t do about Trump’s actual crimes.

[clovis8]

Even if all cases were dropped today Biden is being charged with a crime as soon as he is not president.

Surely by now we know the gop doesn’t care about norms or fairness.

Edit mosdef beat me to it. Lol

[dlk9s]

@gman42

a zillion MAGA slappies would stay home, hell there’s a chance it would even depress Republican turnout enough to save the Senate for the Dems this cycle.

My fear once Trump is no longer a candidate - whenever that happens - is that even though the MAGA base might not turn out as hard (MIGHT not), all the “Never Trumper” Republicans and other conservatives who just couldn’t vote for him will feel good about going right back to pulling that GOP lever. And there won’t be as much of a push from Democratic voters to get to to the polls to stop Trump.

[amead]

No clue if it’ll ever be relevant or the significance, but take a moment and imagine a prison. Imagine the corrections officers. Imagine the warden and others that operate it.

I bet you just imagined a bunch of middle aged white dudes wearing MAGA hats.

[RiskyFlush]

1. “…this was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.”

2. “…this was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.”

3. “…this was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.”

With 2.5 hours of receipts for part 1. I’m listening at 1.5x playback and still have 45 minutes left

[ViridianDreams]

@TheHip41

@clovis8

My concern is more for him to spend time in jail the following has to happen

No plea is offered
He has to be convicted by a unanimous jury
He has to be sentenced to prison
He has to not be elected president
He has to exhaust all appeals
He has to not be successful at SCOTUS
He has to live through all this
Then he ends up in jail

To think that is all greater than 50% probability seems well bold.

Why would Georgia offer him a plea?
What can the us Supreme Court do to a Georgia sentence?

I’m not a criminal attorney, but there are instances when the Supreme Court can overturn state criminal sentences for things like procedural violations that violate a defendant’s civil rights. Interestingly, the caselaw on this over the years has made it incredibly hard to get a conviction overturned, iirc, but a Trump conviction could present a situation where the SCt all of a sudden discovers a much broader interpretation of habeas laws.

[Chippa58]

@mosdef

Republicans have made it crystal clear that they don’t think they have to wait for Dems to break norms before they will break norms. If they see the opportunity to prosecute Biden with a crime then they will do so, no matter what Dems do or don’t do about Trump’s actual crimes.

I think this is the reason that the Justice Department finally got on board with charging Trump with crimes, even while detaching themselves through Jack Smith. The Republicans are going to start throwing Dems in jail anyway when they get back into power, so you might as well throw the first stone. Meantime, I think the logic for a plea is not so much to avoid a civil war, but to keep the country from an embarrassing circus. I still think such a plea is a possibility, and would be the best option for Trump, but because of that, its nearly a given that he won’t take it.

[Trolly]

It’s incredible how much of the federal indictment is dedicated to describing the many ways Mike Pence got humiliated during all of this.

[mosdef]

No kink shaming!

[NotBruceZ]

No surprise here, but I would oppose any deal or compromise if it would legitimately prevent a civil war. However, I am fine with home confinement instead of prison.

[TheHip41]

@clovis8

To prevent a civil war is just the first thought. Imagine violence starts breaking out if the trials are going bad. Not too hard to imagine tons of political pressure to “punish him symbolically” but end the trial.

As for scotus I am not a lawyer but given the basis of most of their recent major decisions is 100% made up bullshit (historical tests for guns, major questions doctrine for regulatory questions) its not too hard to imagine a world where they don’t put a billionaire, ex-president, gop leader-who is loved by the wife of a member - in jail.

There won’t be civil war just like there wouldn’t be civil war if trump stole the election. People are too comfortable.

[bigt2k4]

Counterpoint: Everyone wanted Trump charged and Merrick Garland was specifically appointed to prosecute Trump as he is a Republican so it reduce the appearance of it being a political prosecution. It’s obviously not a political prosecution as he committed copius amounts of serious crimes, but Dems needed to go about reducing political appearances as much as possible. Of course Biden can’t even so much as hint at that and Dems thought anyone with half a brain would see the obvious crimes and prosecute…but Garland was too dumb to realize why he was appointed as he is a Republican and too much of a feckless coward to actually prosecute Trump himself.

[NotBruceZ]

[ViridianDreams]

To be clear, requesting saved drafts doesn’t indicate that Trump was actually doing that. It would be standard to ask for any methods by which the target could convey info.

[mosdef]

Even without a “civil war”, isolated acts of terrorism can be very damaging.

[TrueNorth32]

@clovis8

As for scotus I am not a lawyer but given the basis of most of their recent major decisions is 100% made up bullshit (historical tests for guns, major questions doctrine for regulatory questions) its not too hard to imagine a world where they don’t put a billionaire, ex-president, gop leader-who is loved by the wife of a member - in jail.

While I totally agree that this SCOTUS has no coherent legal theory aside from remaking the nation to most benefit rich, straight white men, SCOTUS doesn’t care about Trump himself. If they did, they would have intervened in any of the array of election cases Trump lost. John Roberts is an institutionalist through and through with a keen sense of his court’s legacy, and I guarantee he has no interest in tossing all that away just for one man.

If the court was nine Thomases, maybe a different story.

[Xiaolongbao]

Convict him and then remove him from the ballots via 14th amendment?

[Soulman]

I have a VERY hard time believing Trump would manage to do this. Would also mean his account would be lol comprised, since he would obviously never change his password.

[TrollyWantACracker]

Serious question - I have seen so many people say that Trump won’t go to prison specifically because of logistics around the secret service. Is it really clear that would even be a complication or consideration? Why would he even be entitled to such protection? And who would care? Anyway prisons have their own protocol for protecting inmates, and others could certainly be arranged, this seems like a very weird consideration in the context of all of this.