The judge was asking if he personally tweeted it or someone else did it on his account.Disrespectful to the judge not to answer his question directly.We won't get rid of Trump by being smart Alecs .
Trump and his followers deserve disrespect ,but not the judge in charge of his case.
The justice system is the favoured target of all the terrorist groups I know of.
The best part is the treasonous orange shitgibbon and the dead ferret on his head both have to sit in the court listening to it and can't retort.
Schoolboy stuff(apart from the "traitrous")
Will the Trump named be totally removed from properties in NY? It lowers the property value so has no benefit.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/21/trump-plaza-rename-real-estate-value
Though some tweets were indeed read to Trump’s discomfort, that wasn’t one of them. It was a hypothetical from Angry Staffer.
@amandstu
Some do, yeah. I'm thinking of the higher up ones closer to him who are facilitating the man, and know full well what they're doing is destructive, but the possibility of power is corrupting their conscience. The ordinary people who are using Trump as a way to stick it to the establishment or as the only alternative in a two party system could benefit from a proper talk, however. If America is to really heal its divisions, at least some of that latter group will need to be listened to and have their concerns addressed in an effective way that (by definition) doesn't involve propping up Trump, the bellicose demagogue.
So, Republicans don't have a problem with a POTUS interfering with the DOJ, they just want them to interfere in their favor
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/fox-news-host-stops-kevin-mccarthy-after-puzzling-comment-youre-saying-biden-should-meddle-with-the-justice-system-in-trumps-favor/
Why are they using the fact that Cohen is a liar as some kind of win against the prosecution? He lied on behalf of Trump didn't he, and that's why he was prosecuted himself, and also why he's a witness for the prosecution against Trump now.
The argument is "once a liar, always a liar", and he shouldn't be believed.
Problem is... Cohen has tapes..
Is anyone else excited?
Lying-Scumbag-Gets-Comeuppance-Day comes but once a year(not even that often in fact).
Sort of. Court proceedings are usually pretty boring. Today might be better because it's opening statement day, the prosecution goes first and hopefully does a bang-up job. The defense, well, we'll see, I expect some variation on 'no one got hurt/the main witness is a liar/…,' but I doubt we'll hear much whining from the defense about witch hunts.
Not excited though, more deeply depressed at how far America has fallen when an ex-POTUS is on trial facing felony convictions. America is the country that eventually gets it right after exhausting all other possibilities, but its still very discouraging, so glad I left the place.
my understanding of the case is that on the facts, he is caught bang to rights.
The apparent difficulty is a technical one, state crime vs federal crime and the procedure for prosecuting. Before all of the cases began, this was deemed to be the weakest one I heard.
My fear is a not guilty verdict before November, enabling Trump to amplify his "witch hunt" message to all and sundry..
I think just one juror selecting a Not Guilty vote means a hung jury, neither found Guilty nor Not Guilty (which means Trump et al will be claiming he was found Not Guilty). The prosecution could try for another trial but it would never happen before the election.
So all it takes is one Trump fan on the jury who has been careful enough to not have a huge social media presence and hasn't displayed his allegience during jury selection, and it's over.
Well I know it's not going to be a quick proceeding. I'm just excited, that we have gotten this far. Some pundits were suggesting getting the jury together could take months alone. I have read comments in the last few months stating this trial would not even go ahead. So it's a step in the right direction.
To me that is always a problem with juries.
I'm sure that pretty much all of these cases are hugely complex technical and legal issues that experts in their field have studied for years and have decades of experience in order to understand them. And now they have to get a bunch of randomers to understand a highly specialised and hugely complex issue in a short time.
One of the biggest US legal tropes is the defence attorney putting on a big show with lots of theatricals and razzmatazz and winning over the jury by blinding them with bullsh!t. That's why I would never trust a jury, even without some MAGA sleeper infiltrating them.
What would happen if the jury were making decision and one of them started with the "election was stolen" and "witch hunt" etc etch…
Would that be just tough luck on prosecution for not weeding them out or can jury do anything?
what was the podcast ?
Behind the Bastards.
”allowed” and “peacefully protest” both doing a lot of heavy lifting in this screed
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-whips-up-maga-base-to-protest-at-courthouses-to-compete-with-pro-palestinian-protests/
What's he on about re:SCOTUS justices? It's been MAGA types doing that, the most recent was a paranoid who left threatening messages on the Chief Justice's voicemail: https://www.thedailybeast.com/former-google-programmer-sentenced-for-threatening-to-kill-supreme-court-justice-john-roberts
probably referring to the Roe protests and the guy who turned himself in but who knows I’m not his interpreter but suggesting such acts were “allowed” is really a stretch. No guessing required at what trump wants to happen though and it’s chaos
I'm guessing 45 *won't* be taking the stand...
In an unusual move, two of the jurors are lawyers and the other jurors are likely to look to them for guidance. More often than not, they tend to be avoided in juries. The thinking is that the prosecution is going to rely on them to guide the rest through the somewhat tortuous logic of the charge to try to join the elements, and the defense is going to rely on them hold the prosecution to task to uphold the burden of proof standard. Overall, the jury has a higher proportion than normal of better educated/professional types.
That said, the complex legalities are left to the judge. The juries are tasked only to determine the facts. Watch for the jury instructions to be "If you decide that this happened, then move to requirement 2. If you decide that X did not happen, aquit" sort of flowchart.
Judge: Does you client wish to take the stand?
Trump's Lawyers: No, your honour.
Truth Social a few minutes later
Trump: THE CORRUPT JUDGE WOULDN'T LET ME TAKE THE STAND! WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FIRST AMENDMENT! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! ELECTION INTERFERENCE!
The only one of those I ever listened to was their Clarence Thomas episodes and they were fantastic
Must be hard to get a random sample of people living in Manhattan who aren't disproprtionately better educated/professional types. A lot of them seem to be New York Times readers which I guess would skew toward that demographic.
So I think the dogs on the street know that Trump had Stormy Daniels paid off, via his surrogates in order to keep her quiet before the election.
What exactly is the challenge in this case? Is it proving that election funds were ultimately used for this purpose and that paying hush money isn't a legitimate election expense or is it actually linking the decision to pay her off to Trump himself?
Is Trump's likely defence to pretend that this was a solo run by Michael Cohen and that Trump was entirely unaware and would have not condoned such underhanded and potentially illegal tactics?
Why do they only get to bring up those cases if Trump takes the stand?
That is exactly what will happen.
That's why it's a difficult hill for the prosecution to climb.
Cohen, Trump's lawyer, paid Daniels. Trump reimbursed Cohen. On the books, the payment by Trump to Cohen was listed as legal fees. Had they been listed on the books as "reimbursement to lawyer to pay off Daniels" there would have been no case, the misrepresentation is a critical component of the charge, but in itself is not the charge. (It would have been one had it been made three or four years ago, statue of limitations for a misdemeanor)
There are two follow-on effects which are relevant. Firstly, if the payments were made to hide the story from potential voters (as opposed to any other reason), then the argument is that as the money was used to help the election campaign, thus would have counted as a political contribution, subject to a limit of a few thousand dollars. The intent to bypass the political contribution limit is the crux of the charge as it relates to election law.
Apparently there is a second alternate route that he charge can be substantiated. It seems that such reimbursements have to be declared under a separate income category for Cohen, and by using the category they actually did, it reduced Cohen's tax bill by a few tens of thousands of dollars, thus permitting tax fraud. The catch with this one is that Trump (or realistically his agent) had to have that intent in mind when he put the entry into the ledger.
That help?
