Trump classified documents judge is target of more than 1,000 complaints, appeals court reveals

vegeta@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 785 points –
Trump classified documents judge is target of more than 1,000 complaints, appeals court reveals
cnbc.com
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Honestly I can't understand why the "hush money" is all the rage. THIS is the crime that would put ANY other American into a supermax. This isn't justice.

The "hush money" framing is such a cutesy, bullshit spin to neuter the actual repeated and unapologetic fraud here. Basic human and business ethics concerns to side for a moment, It's purely fraud against the American people without remorse and it's actual election interference.

You wouldn't say that a serial killer that stabs and kills their victims is on trial for "night night pokes". How was this allowed to get casually accepted like this without challenge from society?

"My neighbor in Tel Aviv is in jail for murder, or, as we call it, enhanced tickling."

-Colonel Erran Morrad (Sacha baron cohen)

Well, some people enjoy my night night pokes. Your momma, for instance. ...sorry

Can you expand more on the election interference part?

Totally understand inciting an insurrection to be interference, but using campaign funds to manage public relations problems seems a legitimate use.

So the falsifying is the illegal bit.

The rest of the tweet is moralising.

More to the point, the paperwork crimes would have been misdemeanors if he hadn't been doing it all for the explicit purpose of influencing an election. That's what made them felonies.

Yeah, if he was upfront about things then there would be no criminal case

However saying he set up shell companies to carry out falsification isn’t moralising

Writing "disgusting transactions" is moralistic.

Doesn't help to win over Republicans.

I think you misread. He said "disguising", which only means intent to keep hidden by masking the truth.

The only disgusting (immoral) part of this is Trump cheating on his wife.

Everything else could have been achieved perfectly legally (i.e. without disgust) if Trump had been smart.

I don't want to disgust you, but "intending to keep things hidden by masking the truth" is practically the definition of politics.

Dude, you have trouble reading. It says "disguising". Your side really fails at the most basic human functions, over and over again.

And finding something disgusting is a moral position.

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I don't think anyone is still naive enough to think you can win over Republicunts. The way to stop Trump is to battle voter apathy and tear down barriers to vote, because the majority will not vote for Trump if they get to cast their votes.

I read somewhere that higher voter turnout in general benefits Trump (like in 2016).

^(People should still vote though)

I can find both opinions: Helps Trump / helps Biden, so probably nobody the fuck knows. I am still sure that the reason Trump won in 2016 was too many Democrat voters being put off by Clinton + the "Bernie Bro" crowd staying home.

Agreed.

I would add that some Trump supporters would possibly have been persuaded to vote for Bernie.

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Others here have addressed your assertions

Others here have rejected those assertions.

I have no idea if that statement is true. I just wanted to illustrate how unhelpful your comment was.

Your tactics here are extremely transparent.

My only tactic in this particular thread branch is to encourage you make more effort with your replies.

Happy for you to keep expending useless energy here so deep in a threaded comment. Please, do reply again, everyone is interested and meaningfully impressed by your intellect.

I refer to my previous answer.

More please, we're nothing without your validation.

Okay, now respond again. You're not able to resist, watch.

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That was not the legal issue of the case, though. Campaigns have to be very transparent with how they spend contributions, for obvious reasons, and it was easy to prove that this appropriation was obfuscated.

using campaign funds to manage public relations problems seems a legitimate use

It is.

What he did was try to hide payments made to benefit his campaign. Would you consider illegally financing a campaign to be election interference?

Not just the financing, but hiding the Stormy Daniels story during the election. They were using the National Enquirer (yes, I know) to promote Trump, make up stories to bring down his opponents, and hide the Stormy Daniels story (which was needed when the "grab them by the pussy" video leak caused chaos and arguably almost sunk the campaign). THAT'S where the election interference came into play.

They were using the National Enquirer (yes, I know) to promote Trump, make up stories to bring down his opponents, and hide the Stormy Daniels story (which was needed when the "grab them by the pussy" video leak caused chaos and arguably almost sunk the campaign)

Isn't this part a normal election strategy in the US? And not illegal itself?

If it's something of a monetary value that benefits the campaign, it must be reported. And it definitely has a monetary value, since he paid money for it.

Honestly, I'm not sure how exactly the law is written. I believe that was a factor out of several that raised the misdemeanor of falsification into a felony (by doing so to conceal a crime). The judge's instructions to the jury was that they needed to be unanimous that a crime was being concealed, but they didn't have to agree on which one(s). Unless some members of the jury go to the media (for their sake, I sure hope they don't) and that gets brought up, we'll probably never know which way that wind was blowing.

Thanks.

In the future I'm sure politicians on all sides will be paying people to keep certain facts quiet. I was just trying to confirm what is legal and what is illegal.

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The business records fraud case ("hush money" is misleading what it was) is just the first case that nothing blocked it from proceeding.

Documents case is blocked by Canon, J6 is blocked by SCOTUS, I guess the Georgia case could proceed too, but was maybe more complicated than this one.

Georgia is blocked due to complaints of impropriety between the DA and her special council.

The claim is that the DA selected the special prosecutor because of their personal relationship and het ability to use this relationship to influence the special council.

And that they used money paid to special council for personal stuff. It is bullshit, but afaik they where ordered to pick one. If the DA stays the special council needs to be replaced or vice versa.

The DA was just reelected.. and swapping special council means the new one needs to get up to apeed. Causing more delays. In my opinion, Georgia is also not happening before November regrettably (short of a hilarious twist of faith).

Because the hush money case is the only case that is likely to happen before the election.

The J6 case in DC got screwed by the Supreme Court refusing to take the appeal before waiting for the DC appeals court to rule. It was obvious that the Supreme Court was going to step in and rule, so Jack Smith requested them to just take the case and they declined saying they wanted to let the DC court decide first. Then they took the appeal a month or so later anyways. Now they have held hearings, but even if they rule against Trump, all they have to do is delay until late July and they know that the justice department won’t be able to resume the trial in time.

In the documents case, which is the most fundamentally simple case, Eileen Cannon has ratfucked the whole process to the point that it’s unlikely to start before July. It should be an open and shut case, but she’s entertaining all sorts of crazy legal theories and giving them months to elaborate on them.

It's been 4 fucking years since Trump has left office. A regular person would never get his trial delayed for that long. If a trial can be delayed for 4 fucking years just because the accused is a powerful individual, it means that the rule of law doesn't apply the same to everyone. If powerful people are exempt from the rule of law, democracy is dead.

Well, that’s Merrick Garland’s fault and there is a lot of blame there. He thought he could take the high road, avoid all this, and let Trump slink off into the shadows like every other failed presidential candidate.

They need to delay until at least November, which is when they know what the Constitutional Originalism says about the case.

Cannon

Out of interest, isn't there a way in the US justice system to take a clearly not impartial judge off a case? I think it's proven beyond any reasonable doubt that her tactics are politically motivated and unnatural / untypical compared to the usual procedure...

Just like with police, judges and politicians both have LOWER expectations for conduct than the random citizen for some reason.

We random normal people have to disclose & avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest working for ordinary boring companies. I’ve taken that training more than once.

“hush money”

It was about the falsification of documents. Hush money is legal.

The hush money one is the first one to actually go to trial, so it's mostly that. The documents case is basically suppressed until they can somehow get rid of this judge, and the other 2 cases are also being held up in places.

The hush money case isn't likely to put him in prison though, I don't think there's any precedent of a politician going to prison for that. And of course there's going to be appeals that can easily push it until past November.

There's plenty of precedent for locking people up when the steal classified documents. It doesn't matter if they're a politician.

By 'this one', I meant the hush money case. I agree that the documents case is the most serious one (and also deliciously ironic given his 2016 criticism of Hillary's classified emails).

I apologize for misinterpreting your comment.

I edited it because it was ambiguous, no need to apologise.

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It's my understanding that there's a pretty ironclad contract between the government and a cleared individual. This is really just a matter of enforcement, and it's hard to see how this isn't one of the most brazen and extensive cases of mishandling classified material. Better people have gone to prison for a lot less, so I say again: no justice.

I have known of people getting dishonorable discharges for simply looking at classified information they were not supposed to, careers over due to misunderstanding or picking a document up after an accident.

If someone other than Trump had all these documents they would be gone from the earth. We would never hear from them again as the FBI went through their life to figure out who else was involved and how they got away with boxes of these documents.

Literally just ready an article this morning that a Navy seaman got 18 years in prison for leaking information after being socially engineered by a foreign agent.

I was in for ten years, and a battle buddy of mine was telling me about a soldier in his platoon who got the other than honorable discharge over classified stuff.

Here is what happened: car accident on post, stuff is all over the intersection. The guy is an E5, already deployed once, is by all means upper crust for a career. One of the people in the accident was the G2. The E5 sees there are classified documents. Calls it in, but decides to help out and scoops them all up into a neat little pile and secures them in his vehicle. He then sits in his vehicle so they are secure.

This is entirely against what he should have done as there was no risk the documents would have blown away. The only reason he didn’t get prison time was due to having an ArCom for Valor. But he is gone and his army career was over at that point for mishandling - simply mishandling - classified documents.

Trump has fucking pallets of them, and “oh gosh, what do we do? UwU it’s sooo tricky!!”

Wait, what did the E5 do wrong? Should have left it out in the intersection?

I think the big thing was him being alone in the car with all of it.

I don’t know what to do in that situation to be honest, but it’s probably a “secure the scene and make sure no one goes in or out” type of deal.

The Supreme Court may well just decide that Trump has absolute immunity, depending on what their pay masters tell them to do.

And it is going to get overturned on appeal. It was an obvious political trial with a judge that donated to Biden, his daughter was bringing in millions because of the trial and the prosecutor ran for office pledging to take down Trump. That's why Trumps bringing in record donations from small donors now.

And I'm sure you're equally as concerned about the conflict of interest from a judge that Trump appointed overseeing one of his trials, right? Surely you are of the opinion that Cannon should have recused herself at the very beginning, right?

Absolute dumbass commentary. The jury decided the case, not the judge. Trump literally had no defense to the allegations other than bald denials. The evidence that he did the crimes was written in paper and undeniable.

You're just buying everything the MSM is selling, hook line & sinker. They wouldn't let Trump have much of a defense. They wouldn't even let an expert witness testify for the defense. And sure, the jury decides the case based on the instructions given by the judge and this is the only time a judge has ever given instructions like the ones in this case. You really don't know much about the justice system if you believe that the judge in a case doesn't play a major role in how a case is decided.

I don't watch "MSM." I read legal filings.

Maybe you should learn to read.

I am an attorney, a trial lawyer.

Yeah, but you didn’t read this particular article posted on a random website by a guy who said he totally knows, and that makes him more qualified than all of us here.

Dude, you're in a cult. And your leader is a criminal.

Where are you getting information from?

Superpatrioteagle50caljesus dot com only has the best news.

Tune in tomorrow for how we explain how NASA spies on your poop!

I read the instructions, so I guess the judge in this case

No, that's not correct. You are receiving delusional propaganda about disallowing expert witnesses from somewhere. Where is that from?

Bradley Smith was definitely allowed to testify as an expert, but the defense declined to call him. Here, since you like pretending to have read things direct from the court. He was not allowed to show up and instruct the jury, which is the same as decided in the prior cited cases in NY and OH.

Where is your delusional propaganda from? The things you are claiming are lies that Donald has been tweeting. So perhaps your delusions are coming direct from the source: a lifelong con man and fraud who committed election interference in 2016.

"I direct you back to page three of my decision," Merchan said, reiterating that Brad Smith could testify as to what the FEC is, its purpose, background, what laws if any FEC is responsible for enforcing and general definitions and terms that relate to this case, including contribution and expenditure. So he was only allowed to testify the definition, purpose, and backround of the FEC which would be pointless really.

Here, just read Brad Smiths own words and you'll see why the defense didn't call him. The judge wouldn't let him explain the law...he would only let him give a general definition.....https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/key-trump-witness-nixed-after-merchans-stringent-rulings-reveals-what-his-testimony-would-have-been/ar-BB1mNALM

No, that's an MSM. I don't want any news from a lying MSM.

Don't know what to tell you. It's his own words so if you'd rather it be someone else speaking for him then go for it

No, the article is clear he was allowed to discuss facts about the law, he was disallowed from presenting his opinions as if they were facts. So they declined to have him.

You are delusional and in a cult, which is why you won't explain where you are getting your information from. You are getting it from liars and other cult members.

Don’t a lot of people run for office on a platform of arresting and convicting people who commit crimes, though? Or am I missing something?

What's it like living in your world?

You Americans are fucking wild right now. I hope you have a civil war to sort this shit out proper, like you did with slavery.

Yeah, that won't happen, they've got such a stranglehold on surveillance in this country, it would never get off the ground and things are just going to get worse. Most younger people and some older people to either keep their face buried into their phones on Facebook or Tiktok propaganda machines or they just buy into everything the MSM tells them so until we fix that stuff there's really no hope of things getting better

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it's not hush money. there's literally nothing illegal about paying to kill a story. this case was about election interference, and the media's inability to report that is such a key tell.

trump didn't pay to hush people up, he paid so they wouldn't wreck his campaign. that's where the crimes come from. that and tax evasion.

Now, all that said: I spent nearly a decade in the army. The way he handled sensitive and secret info during his term, and then taking it home after - this shit cannot stand. How can we expect an 18 year old to take their responsibilities seriously while letting this shit slide?

it's fucking bonkers. if anyone else tried this they'd be waiting for their trial in federal prison, they'd never see the light of day etc.

But but but Hillary's email server!!!!! /s

She got lucky because the Secretary of State was specifically carved out of the data management rules. That loophole has since been closed.

Well considering she worked at the State Dept. I'm sure there were some exceptions proffered.

My argument is the email server was in line with government TS SOP and not, yah know a bathroom at a golf resort.

It wasn't standard operating procedure, she rejected all the stuff the it staff wanted to set up for her. If it had been any other employee of the state department at the time it would have been criminal, and it would be illegal for the SoS today. She also obstructed the investigation.

And it cost her, and the country. It's probably right she didn't face charges, but it was still a serious and irresponsible fuckup.

There are levels to these things, and the mar-a-lago shit is obviously exponentially worse.

Or Hunter's laptop!

Or hunters nudes!

His big, rippling nudes, that we are just obsessed with, and keep posting, and making big posters of to hold in congress, and mounted above our beds for those long, cold, lonely nights..

/s

I'm starting to think it's strategic on jack smiths part. He's got to let her dig a hole so deep and make her bias so blatantly clear that the 11th circuit can't do anything but boot her off the case.

Shit they wouldn't put you in supermax, there wouldn't be a trial. You just disappear. Shit, Snowden went to Russia. All he wants in a public trial.

You have to try to commit treason.

It's one of the few crimes explicitly defined in the Constitution.

Unfortunately, I doubt that we'll ever see him charged.

I'm staying positive - I think his support is going to waver in the coming months and I don't think he's going to win the election.

I have noticed the loudest, most obnoxious supporters have grabbed the microphone and are screaming. But, the middle of the road folks seem to have abandoned him.

Don’t rest on your laurels. We need to drive as many people as possible to vote for the Democratic Party to the polls this November. I don’t give a fuck about you if you vote traitor GOP. Kiss my ass and stay home, you do nothing but make the world worse.

That is what we all thought in 2016.

Anyone under the age of 40 would rather eat glass than answer a pollster, so it is really hard to know for sure.

I think calling for an overthrow of the government counts. But what do I know?

It doesn't count. You need to wage war or aid/comfort the states enemies.

If they can prove he did something with the documents, eg sold Intel to Iran, for example, there's likely a case. Saudi it gets complicated since the US doesn't call them an enemy.

Either way, nothing in the case comes close to justifying a treason charge, though he clearly was acting against the best interests of the country.

Well, there's the whole "comfort part" to the people who tried to do it. Its probably not enough, but he said that he loved them and has since called for the freeing of the "January 6th hostages".

Anyway, as the other guy mentioned, Trump is on record of requesting a list of agents, a number of those people ending up dead, and this was around one of the times that Putin met with him. And remember, Trump had no response for the reporting that Putin had put out a bounty on US personnel abroad....

What about selling a list of undercover agents to Putin?

That one there is pretty much "on the nose".

Of course, Trump intentionally didn't let them record transcripts of his meetings, which is not suspicious at all.

Because it’s the one case that’s likely to happen before the election.

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