Donald Trump the Megathread part II - Mod Warning updated in OP 12/2/26

In truth theyre a dime a dozen. Both throughout history as powerful people and throughout humanity for the many like them that get nowhere near power.

The clue is in "campaigned".

He campaigned on a lot of things.

With regard to Iran I reckon we're very soon going to see a TACO to rival all TACOs. In fact people in the future will go up to trump with tears in their eyes and say 'sir, I've never seen anyone do a better TACO than you, ever'….

Invade Iran? 🤣 🤣

Good luck with that.

Great point

Aside you might want to edit your signature

"

On the Andrew Windsor arrest, I suspect this is not so much about bringing him to justice, though it looks as though it needs to be done, its about unravelling Trump and his role in an international scandal"

A gut feeling that this is completely off the wall and that this arrest is for purely internal reasons.

I would be overjoyed if it was for the reasons you suggest but my flabber would be truly ghasted if it was in any conceivable way.

Selling state secrets is a really shity crime to commit and I can see why he (and Mandelson) may deserve to be prosecuted.

(quite aside from the Epstein angle)

not 1 person in the Trump Epstein administration held to account yet.

It's a bit of a wooly area of law in their system, and will be interesting to see where it leads - there isn't really a whole lot of precedent for senior public office holders being convicted of this, it's mostly stuff like police officers and council related stuff and it's typically 12-18 months, with one sentence of 4 years, and a lot of suspended sentences. It's a Common Law offence, rather than one defined by legislation, so it's a bit of a stretch to say it 'carries up to life imprisionment' - the offence just doesn't have a defined maximum sentence.

The could yet be further charges though, particularly around the Official Secrets Act and so on. My prediction is there'll be further charges as the investigations continue and more evidence is unearthed. The initial charge gives police more scope to dig. Much like our system, they have to build a water tight case before they bring charges. You can't go in with vague evidence and do a court-led investigation like the French inquisitorial system for example, so the headlines won't be as dramatic.

I don't think the UK has any grand international strategy on this tbh - it's just normal police work and cleaning house. There's huge reputational damage to the government and institutions of state by what went on and how they proceed with holding individuals to account will be of huge importance domestically. If they fail to investigate and hold to account, I think there would be a major loss of public confidence and not just at a party-politics level, but in the institutions of the UK state at a much broader level.

"There's huge reputational damage to the government and institutions of state by what went on and how they proceed with holding individuals to account will be of huge importance domestically. "

Absolutely.When the most highly trusted betray that trust(and privilege) that compounds the damage.

I am not sure if anyone is interested in whether the government prodded the justice system to arrest Andrew .It would be interesting to see who who bring that up, but the government could surely have had no interest in impeding the investigation (or aligning it with American concerns)

It is a happy coincidence, though that it might flush out what Epstein's game was and who else was involved.

When the Epstein files revealed that Lord Mandelson was in receipt of funds from Epstein it showed that backhanders were being paid to persons in privileged positions in the UK. Another quid pro quo situation. Who else was being provided with beneficial business information from London by Mandelson?

The questions now are who was the go-between the former Prince and a possible funder in the U.S AND what to do with Andrew himself. The Bahamas currently have a governor and I don't see France allowing him retire there, too troublesome a package. The only use he would be to Trump would be as a spoon to stir it with the UK.

Ref the original unredacted files, the idea that the present FBI director is likely to be like J Edgar and kept them in the filing cabinets might be putting the **** up persons in the Swamp.

Never let it be forgotten how weird a timeline we're living in where the President of the USA drops in some promotion for his wife's vacuous vanity documentary during a supposedly serious speech. President Camacho would be an upgrade.