Any bets on Mueller vs Trump?

[WheatToast]

Call me a slaphappy optimist, but if Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller was able to take down John Gotti and his team of full horsepower Mafia attorneys, I doubt that Dumb Donald and his lead attorney Fruity Rudy will be any match at all for Mueller's surgical strategic planning.
When I saw Mueller has assigned some of the cases to the NY Southern District and other jurisdictions where Trump's pardons are useless, I knew he had neutralized Trump's pardoning powers, thereby destroying his only bargaining chips.
Also, I know Trump's base has threatened riots if Trump gets busted...but have you seen those guys? I'm never intimidated by men whose bra cup sizes are bigger than mine. Those beer guts also make their arms shorter--like an army of T Rexes.
When 70 out of 100 Americans want to see Trump face justice, the 30% left over won't like the odds of winning any riots. Like with Nixon, his base just STFU and pretended not to notice Nixon being run out of town on a rail. Bullies are just cowards with louder voices and their moms' tiki torches. Once their grand poohbah gets taken down, their big talk and threats of violence will fizzle out faster than Trump's hair color in prison.
Your thoughts?

[Lyte]

Bets? No ... only because it's Mueller against Trump and all Trump's appointed cronies and all the dinosaurs controlling Congress. The other reason I'd not hazard to bet on Mueller... is that so much crazy shit has come out about Trump himself ... his businesses ... his kids ... his past... his present... his f'ing everything ... and yet none of it has proven to be enough for Congress and/or his base to finally say enough! Even so... despite all of that ... I am still rooting for Mueller!

Originally Posted by WheatToast

Call me a slaphappy optimist, but if Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller was able to take down John Gotti and his team of full horsepower Mafia attorneys, I doubt that Dumb Donald and his lead attorney Fruity Rudy will be any match at all for Mueller's surgical strategic planning.
When I saw Mueller has assigned some of the cases to the NY Southern District and other jurisdictions where Trump's pardons are useless, I knew he had neutralized Trump's pardoning powers, thereby destroying his only bargaining chips.
Also, I know Trump's base has threatened riots if Trump gets busted...but have you seen those guys? I'm never intimidated by men whose bra cup sizes are bigger than mine. Those beer guts also make their arms shorter--like an army of T Rexes.
When 70 out of 100 Americans want to see Trump face justice, the 30% left over won't like the odds of winning any riots. Like with Nixon, his base just STFU and pretended not to notice Nixon being run out of town on a rail. Bullies are just cowards with louder voices and their moms' tiki torches. Once their grand poohbah gets taken down, their big talk and threats of violence will fizzle out faster than Trump's hair color in prison.
Your thoughts?

[Kätzchen]

I'm actually interested in the subject of collusion, which is dangling precariously in the news. I remember back in the day, during Nixon-Gate, how his attorney John Dean was tried and convicted for his role (collusion). I also remember key participants in the spiraling saga of Enron, and how certain people (Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling?) were tried and convicted for their roles (collusion) in their fraudulent schemes.

I find it hard to believe that anyone would fall for the idea that collusion is an prosecutable offence because while collusion is not exactly narrowly defined as crime, it's the crimes committed via acts of collusion which are prosecutable.

I'm interested in this particular aspect of the Mueller investigation because tracking acts of crime and connecting key participant roles, will most likely be the way Mueller connects the proverbial dots, concerning the unclever charades by you-know-who.

[A. Spectre]

Pardons will not help Manafort, I believe state fraud charges would still be in play. Mueller probably uncovered a slew of crimes that could be prosecuted by the state and NOT at the federal level. Wiser minds than mine are whispering that Paulie is in fear for his life. This will get curiouser and curiouser each day.

There is a case heading toward The Supreme Court that would make state prosecutions after a presidential pardon unconstitutional "double jeopardy." One of the many sleazy reasons frat-boy kavanaugh is on the court.

Thank you New York for your AG!

[nhplowboi]

I do not know if Mueller plays chess or not but I see him as a Bobby Fischer type. He not only has his eye on the prize but all the things that might deter it from happening. He is meticulous and I have total faith in him.

[WheatToast]

Originally Posted by nhplowboi

I do not know if Mueller plays chess or not but I see him as a Bobby Fischer type. He not only has his eye on the prize but all the things that might deter it from happening. He is meticulous and I have total faith in him.

If Mueller was able to nail John Gotti, and with Trump's clown car full of ever changing, shady lawyers (Giulliani, at least) and all of his flipping associates, I doubt Trump stands a chance.

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by WheatToast

If Mueller was able to nail John Gotti, and with Trump's clown car full of ever changing, shady lawyers (Giulliani, at least) and all of his flipping associates, I doubt Trump stands a chance.

I watched this last night on YouTube: Saturday Night Live's SNL Mueller Investigation Cold Open. Pretty spot on, if you ask me.

[charley]

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Mueller is coming to town
He's making a list
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice
Mueller is coming to town
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!
O! You better watch out!
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Mueller is coming to town
Mueller is coming to town

[Kätzchen]

It's been nearly 2 and a half years since I last posted in this thread. But I came across an article over on MSNBC, which gives another aspect to consider, concerning holding you-know-who accountable. Over the past few weeks, I have noticed that news about holding this person accountable is rare to read or hear about, so I thought I would update this thread with the news story I read today.

I seriously want our justice system to hold him accountable and punish him accordingly... For every horrible thing he has done, including brainwashing millions of American's with his version of 'reality'.

He's so fucked up, it's unreal.

************************************************** **

A Potential Trump Indictment Would Still Leave Crimes Unpunished

May 15, 2021, 2:30 AM PDT
By Richard W. Painter, MSNBC Opinion Columnist

Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, appears to be closing in on former President Donald Trump. The Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Alan Weisselberg, is in the prosecutor’s crosshairs and may turn state evidence on Trump in order to save his own skin.

Weisselberg’s son is also in trouble, presumably for not reporting compensation from Trump as taxable income, giving Weisselberg even more incentive to cooperate with Vance.

Vance’s office has finally obtained the Trump Organization records subpoenaed by a grand jury after Trump tried unsuccessfully to block the subpoena in federal court. As I pointed out in a Supreme Court amicus brief submitted with University of Pennsylvania professor Claire Finkelstein in Trump v. Vance, it was absurd for Trump to have argued that the enumerated powers of the president under Article II of the Constitution included a right to block a grand jury subpoena of his personal business records. But it is the crimes that Trump allegedly committed in office that are the greater danger to our republic.

Trump is in plenty of other legal hot water, including an investigation by the New York state attorney general; the investigation into Ukraine and other matters by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, which recently led to carrying out a search warrant on Rudy Giuliani’s apartment; an investigation in Fulton County, Georgia, into whether Trump solicited election fraud last November in violation of a state criminal statute; and the investigation into his actions before the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

We still don’t know if, when and where Trump will be indicted and if so for what crimes, but he surely has a lot of legal exposure.

At some point, we need to decide if we really do embrace a notion of presidential power under the Constitution that allows a president to fire anybody for any reason, even to obstruct justice; that allows a president to conduct foreign policy any way he or she wants, even if to coerce a foreign power to interfere in the next U.S. election; that allows a president to use control of the military any way he or she wants, even if to “redo” a lost election; and finally, that allows a president, if unsuccessful in all of these things, to incite followers to stage an insurrection at the Capitol.

What’s most troubling is that throughout Trump’s presidency, he believed himself to be immune from criminal prosecution and that the powers of the presidency entitled him to do anything he wanted to do. The same president who Vance suspects of violating the law in conducting the business of the Trump Organization was also running the presidency like a criminal enterprise.

Trump had plenty of enablers both inside and outside the government. First and foremost was Congress, which, while both houses were in GOP control, did nothing to constrain Trump. For the first two years of the Trump presidency, there were no serious investigations into potential malfeasance in office, and some powerful committee chairs such as Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., colluded with the White House to give advance information about where investigations were headed.

Congress also did nothing when Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in order to obstruct the Russia investigation — a sharp contrast to the bipartisan uproar in Congress in 1974 when President Richard Nixon fired the Watergate special prosecutor, Archibald Cox. Congress also did nothing when Trump repeatedly attacked special counsel Robert Mueller in 2017 and 2018, and — as we learned later from former White House counsel Don McGahn — tried to fire Mueller.

Second were the lawyers and legal academics who lent a helping hand to Trump’s alleged obstruction of the Russia investigation and then his quid pro quo extortion of Ukraine, and more. William Barr, as a private sector lawyer, wrote an 18-page memo for lawyers representing defendants in the Mueller investigation in which Barr ridiculed Mueller’s view that a president, like anyone else, can be prosecuted for obstruction of justice. Barr also interviewed with Trump to explore the possibility of joining his legal defense team.

Barr’s memo apparently was so good that Trump, instead of adding Barr to his defense team, appointed him attorney general so he could supervise Mueller. A federal court just a few weeks ago found that Barr, in 2019, failed miserably in this job, among other things misrepresenting to Congress the findings in the Mueller investigation.

Legal academics, in pursuit of attention from the media and Trump, also chimed in to attack the Mueller investigation. I repeatedly confronted Alan Dershowitz’s unfair attacks on the character of Mueller and his team. Likewise, Jonathan Turley's attack on Mueller for hiring lawyers that had a “history of expansive interpretation of obstruction of justice.”

These pundits, seeking to discredit Mueller at every turn, provided apparent justification for Barr to belittle the Mueller report and misrepresent its findings — particularly the findings in Part II of the report on obstruction of justice — in his communications with Congress.

Then there were the academics, some of them professed “liberals” who embraced an expansive vision of presidential power that sent Trump the message he wanted to hear: that as president he could do anything he wanted to do with impunity. Cass Sunstein argued that a sitting president could not be indicted for anything before being impeached.

(click this link to read the entire op-ed and watch three embedded videos.)

Vance will not face many of these constitutional arguments because he is investigating the private actions of the Trump Organization rather than abuses of presidential power. Vance’s confrontation with presidential power was only in the yearlong delay caused by Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to quash Vance’s subpoenas, which were upheld by the Supreme Court.

If criminal law can define no limits to presidential power, our president will be more akin to a mafia don than to the head of a democratic republic. That is not the Constitution I believe in and I doubt it is the Constitution our forbearers believed in when they drafted and ratified it more than 230 years ago. In the America most of us believe in, no person is above the law, even the president.

[homoe]

~~~
Just how long do we have to wait to see this bastard in a orange jumpsuit?!!?

[cathexis]

First reported on CNN, NY District Attorney released an announcement that Donald Trump's charges are no longer just Civil Charges.

Donald Trump is now facing Indictment by the NY State Attorney as well as the Manhattan DA. The charges have not been released at this time.

[homoe]

Originally Posted by homoe

~~~
Just how long do we have to wait to see this bastard in a orange jumpsuit?!!?

For about two years, the Trump Organization has been the focus of two parallel investigations in New York, one led by James and another led Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. James enforces criminal laws across the state, while Vance's jurisdiction is limited to Manhattan.

Both offices are probing Trump's business dealings before he became president, including whether his business falsely reported property values to secure loans and obtain economic and tax benefits.

Vance's probe always has been criminal in nature, meaning it could culminate in charges being brought against Trump and associates.

Until recently, James's inquiry had been purely civil, but her office said on Tuesday that its investigation "is no longer purely civil in nature" and that it is "now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA."

Republican Trump has called both investigations politically motivated harassment. Vance and James are Democrats.

Sidebar: Two years seems like ample time to find something this jackass has done illegal! AGAIN I ask how long must we wait to see the SOB in a orange jumpsuit!?

[homoe]

Originally Posted by cathexis

First reported on CNN, NY District Attorney released an announcement that Donald Trump's charges are no longer just Civil Charges.

Donald Trump is now facing Indictment by the NY State Attorney as well as the Manhattan DA. The charges have not been released at this time.

OF course he'd say that!!

A day after the New York attorney general's office announced a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump's company. The ex-president came out swinging Wednesday, describing the probe in a statement as a corrupt investigation “that is in desperate search of a crime.”
Adding that he was “being unfairly attacked and abused" by the NY Attorney General and that he would “overcome” any attempt at prosecution.

Sidebar: He's also facing a criminal investigation in Fulton County, Georgia as prosecutors there are probing whether Trump attempted to influence the state's 2020 election results.

[homoe]

Originally Posted by cathexis

First reported on CNN, NY District Attorney released an announcement that Donald Trump's charges are no longer just Civil Charges.

Donald Trump is now facing Indictment by the NY State Attorney as well as the Manhattan DA. The charges have not been released at this time.

HuffPost
Michael Cohen Reveals When And How Trump Will Flip On His Own Family To Avoid Jail

Michael Cohen, former personal attorney and “fixer” to Donald Trump, delivered a blunt warning Wednesday to the former president’s closest associates and even his own family.

“I think Donald Trump is going to flip on all of them,” he warned, “including his children.”

Cohen spoke on MSNBC one day after it was revealed that the Trump Organization is now the subject of a criminal investigation by the New York attorney general.

“I really believe that Donald Trump cares for only himself, and he realizes that his goose is cooked,” Cohen said. And that means he’ll start looking for others to blame, he said.

First, he said, Trump will blame Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg and others involved in his finances.

“It wasn’t me. It was Allen. It was my accountant. It was the appraiser,” Cohen said, mimicking a potential Trump argument. “It’s never Donald. See, this is the problem. It’s never, ever Donald Trump. It’s always somebody else.”

And when investigators start raising questions about Trump’s tax returns, he’s going to blame those closest to him.

“He’s going to turn on his accountant and point the finger,” Cohen predicted. “He’s going to say, ‘Don Jr. handled that, Ivanka handled that. Melania. Don’t take me. Take Melania.’ He’s going to tell them to take everyone except for himself. That’s just the kind of guy he is.”