Update 6-8-2023: Breaking news has it that Mr. Trump has been indicted in the classified documents case, and has been ordered to appear in the Miami federal court for it Tuesday 6-13-23. The indictment is sealed, so nobody yet knows what is in the indictment. My best guess is that it will address improper possession of classified materials, improper storage of classified materials, and obstruction of justice by lying about not having any more of the classified materials, when he did in fact have them.
That last provoked the search that found them in unsealed boxes in an unlocked storage room at his home, which had no approvals to store them after he left office. He will claim he declassified them as his defense, and he had the authority to do that until he left office, but he did NOT follow the procedure for doing so, which generates a paper trail that can be tracked and confirmed. There is clearly no such paper trail for the materials in question.
That leaves the other special prosecutor investigation into the role Mr. Trump played in causing the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. The federal grand jury in DC will likely do that one. It actually makes sense to try them in the federal courts nearest the venues where the crimes occurred. The classified documents thing happened in Florida, while the insurrection thing happened in DC.
And, we have yet to hear from the Georgia prosecutors over the election interference felony case under investigation there. We all have already heard the infamous phone call. I really would expect to see Georgia state felony indictments issued over that one.
There are the state felonies in NYC for which Mr. Trump was recently indicted, and which will go to trial in coming months.
And, because he cannot keep his big mouth shut like the judge ordered, he faces more civil litigation over the recent defamation case.
Mr. Trump is indeed in a rather enormous batch of very severe legal troubles. The max penalty in the classified document case is 10 years behind bars for each and every separate document mishandled (and there hundreds of them). In any event, if he's in court, how can he campaign for office? If he's in jail, how could he possibly govern anything?
Looks to me like the dam is now in the process of bursting. We're past leaking from cracks.
Update 5-10-2023: Well, some of the cracks in the dam have begun to leak. He just lost the civil suit against him on charges of sexual abuse and defaming. The judgement was for $10 million. Upcoming: the felony indictments in NYC. Even more important: whatever DOJ finally does with the classified documents and the Jan. 6 insurrection. "Teflon Don's" teflon is now demonstrated to be thin enough to get on with these other cases. So, just get on with them! He's not the only one. I also see that egregious liar George Santos is in actual custody, awaiting felony charges. There are many more such figures that also need to be held accountable.
Update 4-5-2023 post-arraignment:
Well, he’s a indicted
felon now! See update appended below at
end of original article.
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Minor updates 4-3-2023 below in this color.
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Former President Donald J. Trump just got indicted by the New York DA’s office. It’s supposedly felony-level, and has something to do with the hush money case he denied and apparently tried to cover up. Perhaps soon we will know what the charges really are, but for now, the indictment is still sealed.
Whatever the detailed facts,
and however weak or strong the case is,
this has set a good precedent: no
one is above the law, not even a former
President. There are more serious
possible crimes that Mr. Trump may be soon charged with, still under investigation. Hopefully,
this precedent-setting indictment will encourage those other prosecutors
to get off their duffs and get on with their jobs, too.
There is the election-tampering case under investigation in
Georgia. We’ve all heard the recorded phone
call, of Mr. Trump pressuring a Georgia
official to “find” enough votes that didn’t really exist; just enough to overturn the 2020 election
result in that state, which is the
actual proof that this was indeed pressure.
That’s a more serious crime than the New York hush money case, with a bigger criminal penalty, and based on that phone call recording, pretty much a slam-dunk case.
That Georgia prosecutor needs to get on with his job. He should already have done something.
And there’s at least two really serious cases being
investigated by the US Department of Justice (DOJ). One is about Mr. Trump’s roles leading up
to, and during, the January 6 insurrection at the US
Capitol. The other is about the roles
played by Mr. Trump, and his lawyers, concerning the discovery of over a hundred
classified documents improperly stored at an unapproved location: Mar A Lago. Plus, possible obstruction of justice regarding the classified documents.
These documents were found there by the FBI raid, after Mr. Trump’s lawyers legally certified that
they were not there! These were documents
that Mr. Trump claimed he declassified,
which he had the authority to do,
although we have seen precisely ZERO evidence that he ever actually did
the required actions to do that declassification. Without that paper trail, those documents were NOT declassified!
I handled classified information as part of my job about 30-50
years ago. Back then I had the necessary
clearances to be doing that. If I had
mishandled classified information the way those Mar A Lago documents were
mishandled (and lied about), I would
still be in jail today! That one appears
to be a slam-dunk conviction for Trump (it was his home in which these
documents were found, he is
responsible), and at the very least it portends
perjury convictions for some of his lawyers.
DOJ’s special prosecutor really needs to move forward on that one. No one is above the law, not even “Teflon Don” Trump!
But the most serious is the January 6 insurrection, which could easily have escalated into an
attempted coup to overthrow the US government.
Mr. Trump and some of his associates are the most culpable for causing
that event, but there are others whose
roles deserve investigation, and some of
them were or are serving in both Houses of Congress. The House January 6 committee did a lot of
DOJ’s work for them, but not all of
it. What we already know is rather
damning for Mr. Trump, but I think DOJ
ought to investigate deeper into the circumstances of Mr. Trump’s limousine
ride back to the White House from the Ellipse,
if they are not already doing so.
There is some reason to believe that Mr. Trump wanted to go
to the Capitol during the insurrection,
and not back to the White House.
It was apparently his Secret Service agents who forced his return to the
White House, according to one Jan 6 committee hearing. An informed speculation
about this would be that Mr. Trump wanted to lead the insurrection himself, thus spurring it to even greater levels of
violence, certainly not to try to calm
it down. An increase in violence would
justify a declaration of martial law,
and if enough of the military supported him, then a coup to overturn his own
government, and install him as dictator.
This is not as far-fetched as it sounds upon first
hearing. Mr. Trump has been the “fearless
leader” of a leader cult among far-right groups, including Qanon among many others, since he first ran for office. These groups all share an almost-religious
devotion to their leader, and a distrust
of democratic institutions (supposedly corrupted by a world-girdling “deep
state”), to the point of preferring a
military dictatorship instead of our government. Nearly all these groups intend
to round up and imprison or execute all their opposition. Their overthrow and punishment of this
putative “deep state” is nearly always referred to as “the storm”.
My take on it is that DOJ and its special prosecutor need to
get their act together and just get on with their indictments. It’s already way overdue that they act.
There are a lot of people out there who actually believe
these “deep state” and “stolen election” conspiracy theories, being led there by the propaganda spewed by
Fox News personalities, and some other
far-right sources, all of which are
“infected” with Russian disinformation, which disinformation is where the "pro-Putin/anti-Ukraine" wing of the GOP comes from.
They and the many right-wing extremist groups are Trump’s base voters.
To a great extent, this
base has controlled the Republican Party since Trump first ran for office. Which is exactly why that party no longer
offers credible policy initiatives (not even a party platform for the 2020
election), but instead just these
culture war-agenda things, which are
made-up lies intended to divide us.
Don’t get me wrong.
We do need conservative voices and elected officials to act as a brake
on the more leftist extremists of the Democratic Party (of which there are
some, but not very many). But today’s Republicans are not that credible
and well-intended brake. They have not
been for many years now. I’ve seen more
conservative economic policies out of the Democrats, than anything I’ve seen out of the
Republicans, for more than 30 years
now. Do not listen to what politicians of any stripe say, look only at what they actually do.
Get rid of Trump, and
there are other evil clones just like him,
ready to pop up and take over, doing
the same conspiracy-theory evils that Trump did, instead of proper governance. Until that party is no longer controlled by its extremists, and can actually propose credible public policy, I cannot see voting for it. Too dangerous, as Jan 6 demonstrated. And a lot of folks still need to go to jail for that one.
Well, he’s a indicted
felon now!
We’ll see what happens, if and when this goes to trial, tentatively this coming January. I have downloaded and read the indictment and
the supporting statement of facts. I
think it will take multiple key witnesses to make this case to a jury. The talk is that the prosecutors have them (the
key witnesses), although they are not
indicated in the statement of fact document.
But Trump can still run for President,
and hold the office, even if
convicted of these crimes!
I noted that his lawyers were warned by the judge to urge
him not to publicly say inciteful things.
Yet that is exactly what he did upon his return to Mar A Lago! It is my opinion that the only reason there
was not trouble in the streets of Manhattan with angry Trump supporters during
the arraignment, is that they were outnumbered
by anti-Trump protesters, and they knew
it. (Although, the legal fate of some thousand of Trump’s
supporters who stormed the Capitol may have also played a role.) Note also that “Trumpist” Marjorie Taylor
Greene and that egregious liar George Santos both left quickly because of the
size of the anti-Trump crowd.
My hope is that the issuance of this indictment may shame or
spur-on the other prosecutors, in
Georgia and at the Department of Justice, to get on with their cases with more alacrity. I would expect to see at least one more
indictment, maybe two, issued by them. There is the possibility of three, or even four,
indictments. The federal cases
are actually quite strong, as long as
justice is administered in an even-handed way:
regardless of the wealth and power of the defendants (plural, because there are multiple possible defendants).
What you have to understand about all the Trump-caused chaos
we have seen since 2015 is that he is the focus of a couple of a “fearless leader
cults”. Those cults are only loosely-organized, and they overlap quite a bit, but they are together the majority of his
voter base.
Cults can be religious or political, or even both.
It doesn’t matter. They are
dangerous because they are based on belief,
not reason. You cannot negotiate
or debate with cults and cult members. Example:
1993 standoff with the Branch Davidian leader cult based around David
Koresh (aka Vernon Wayne Howell) in Waco.
There have been many such throughout history.
I wrote an earlier article about such fearless leader
cults, published on this site. That article is “Beware of Leader Cults”, posted 9 February 2020. Besides scrolling down, you can reach it by using the navigation tool
left side of page. Click on the
year, then the month, and finally on the title, since I posted 3 articles that month. That article on cults should convince readers
that I know what I am talking about, and
that I can recognize one of these leader cults when I see it.
Since I posted that article,
I have split the Trump cult into his “Trumpist-GOP” political support
and the more emotional belief system-oriented cult of rank-and-file voters that
is mostly (but not entirely) based on the Qanon conspiracy theory. That Trumpist-GOP (“Trumpism”) cult is not
quite the same as the Trump/Qanon cult,
but they do overlap very strongly. This reworked spreadsheet lists both of the (revised)
Trump cults I have identified, plus all
the others I looked at for comparison.
The list is NOT comprehensive.
I would particularly like to call the reader’s attention to
a list of parallels between the two Trump cults (taken together) and the Adolf
Hitler cult that was the Nazi party in Germany.
It should alarm you enough to perhaps question your own beliefs. Given what happened in 1930’s Germany, we cannot let this Trump cult gain power again in
the US. We very narrowly averted their
becoming a dictatorship in January 2021, as indicated in paragraphs 8, 9, and
10 in the original article just above.
Comparison …
Name Hitler/Nazi Trump cults
Revered leader Adolf Hitler Donald J. Trump
Atrocious behavior yes yes
Enemy of the people non-Germans Dems/”deep state”
Scapegoat for ills Jews immigrants
###enemy “thugs” Jews/commies “Antifa”
Name of takeover (Reichstag fire) “the storm”
Slogan ***see note “make America great again”
Notes:
***The Nazis did not have an official slogan, but based on what they promised, and how similar it was to the Trump promises
in the 2016 campaign, it might as well
have been “make Germany great again”,
had they created one.
###There is NO actual organization named “Antifa”! That is a category for classifying groups
used by federal law enforcement and intelligence groups, it is NOT a specific organization. The closest thing we in the US have ever had
to a violent leftist organization, was
the “Weather Underground” antiwar terrorist bombers, back in the late 1960’s. As for the Nazis, they claimed the Jews and the Russian
communists were one group, to be feared
and eliminated. They claimed this, despite the fact that Jews were also lethally
persecuted in communist Russia, including
before the communist takeover in Russia.
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