News Trump: Mar-a-Lago just raided by FBI

[nOOky]

That was a /s on his part.

I don't see how they can cut a deal with Trump when Nauta is def going to prison.

Thanks, you're right. Isn't Nauta at least getting defense money from a conservative PAC?

 

[hal2kilo]

Wow, according to Sen. Rubio, you can rob a bank, take the money with you, but as long as you didn't cash it in, there was no crime.

Republicans Contort Themselves In New Ways To Defend Trump

“There's no allegation that there was harm done to the national security,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

www.huffpost.com

 

[Denly]

Security clearance and specialized skills needed for this case talked a lot, does it also apply to the Judge? Does Cannon process such clearance/skillset?

 

[Amused]

An absolutely chilling article.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/14/politics/donald-trump-indictment-2024-campaign/index.html

Donald Trump went from courtroom to campaign trail in the blink of an eye on Tuesday, underscoring how the 2024 election – which should address the most pressing issues of the American people – has become a mere tool of his criminal defense strategy.

After scowling in crossed-arm silence as he became the first former president to be charged with crimes by the federal government, Trump quickly transitioned to a Cuban cafe in Miami where he lapped up the adulation of supporters singing “Happy Birthday.”

Later, at his golf club in New Jersey, the twice-impeached former president and the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination falsely presented himself as a blameless victim of a tyrannical government, ignoring the 37 federal charges against him related to alleged mishandling of classified documents.

“Today we witnessed the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country. Very sad thing to watch, a corrupt sitting president had his top political opponent arrested on fake and fabricated charges of which he and numerous other presidents would be guilty, right in the middle of a presidential election in which he’s losing very badly,” Trump said, once again ignoring the facts.
The ex-president, who tried to steal the 2020 election, accused President Joe Biden and a band of misfits and Marxists of election interference and of mounting a political persecution typical of a fascist or communist nation. He also falsely insisted he had to the right to keep secret documents that were the property of the US government.

His remarks were among the most chilling and demagogic ever uttered by a major figure in modern American history. And on a somber day in the nation’s story, they said everything about the former president and the divisive spectacle ahead as he runs for the White House under the shadow of two criminal indictments to which he has pleaded not guilty – with more possibly to come.

Trump’s defiance reinforced the impression he views the law with contempt. By ignoring the gravity of a situation he created, he once again put immediate personal and political needs ahead of the national interest – a trend reflected in his haphazard storage of classified documents in a bathroom, ballroom and shower. The material included secrets about America’s nuclear program and key military plans and, according to the indictment, he allegedly obstructed government efforts to get them to safety.

Trump’s showmanship bolstered a strategy of putting his legal woes at the center of a campaign already rooted in claims he’s the blameless victim of a politicized justice system.
“Some birthday, we got a government that is out of control,” Trump was heard saying in the Cuban restaurant hours before turning 77. This is the kind of victimization theme that has long been at the center of Trump’s grievance-based populist appeal. He’s once again trying to delegitimize the institutions holding him to account, seeking to light a fire under GOP voters and even to shape an eventual jury pool in Florida.

But Tuesday’s political choreography showed this approach is more than a political strategy. It revealed a deeper, emerging reality about the 2024 campaign. Trump’s legal defense strategy is now entirely fused with his electoral one. His bid to regain the White House is no longer a mere political campaign but has now become about self-preservation. As his court battles grind on, his biggest aim appears to be recapturing the presidential authority that might give him the power to make his potential criminal liability – and even the threat of jail time, if convicted – go away.

“He’s not running to save America, he’s running to save himself, and if that means tearing down the judicial system and special counsel, he’ll do it,” CNN political commentator Van Jones said on “The Lead” on Tuesday.

How Trump’s new legal jeopardy could shape 2024
This unprecedented domination of an American presidential election by a major candidate’s personal legal plight will have important implications for Trump and his opponents.

— It means that a third consecutive US presidential election will be tainted by investigations or allegations of criminal wrongdoing involving major candidates – following the Hillary Clinton email flap in 2016 and Trump’s false claims about voter fraud in 2020. If Trump becomes the 2024 GOP nominee, the cloud of criminality could linger over the election until November next year. This means that the democratic process is likely to absorb further blows to its credibility – at least in the eyes of millions of Trump supporters who buy his propaganda.

— Trump’s decision to make the entire Republican primary about his legal problems is a conundrum for GOP rivals who have largely failed to find a way to define themselves against the ex-president without alienating many of his supporters. The alleged offenses outlined in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment are so grave that they require those circling the wagons around Trump to ignore potentially huge threats to national security posed by his lax storage of secret documents. The focus on Trump also makes it very hard for other candidates to shift the arguments of the campaign onto other themes GOP voters want addressed – including immigration and “woke” policies that they think are eroding traditional American culture.

— Trump is also putting some key party leaders in a bind as they rush to defend him. Some, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, condemned the indictment as an example of political persecution before even seeing the charges. This is hardly surprising. After all, scores of House Republicans voted not to certify Biden’s election win in January 2021 hours after Trump incited a mob to attack the US Capitol as he sought to stay in power after an election he lost.

But concern is fast growing among some GOP figures about the magnitude of the alleged offenses. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley gingerly moved onto this political territory when she said this week that if the indictment against Trump is true, he had been “incredibly reckless.” Reflecting the bind Trump’s foes face, she followed up Tuesday by saying she’d be inclined to pardon him if she won the White House. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is also in the race, told the Wall Street Journal: “I can’t defend what is alleged.” The willingness of GOP primary candidates to criticize Trump doesn’t just reflect the seriousness of the charges; it may also suggest his rivals sense Trump is increasingly politically vulnerable over the case.

Some other members of the GOP are making similar points. Republican Rep. Ken Buck, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told CNN’s Dana Bash that “there were national security implications from having documents in an unsecure area.” The Colorado lawmaker added: “I think that the prosecutor really went into a lot of detail to explain to the American public why it was necessary to indict a former president.” Another Republican, Arkansas Rep. Steve Womack, pointed to Trump’s “reckless disregard” for classified information. “How you handle our nation’s secrets is of paramount importance,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju. For now, these are minority positions being vocalized by conservative House Republicans, but they show growing questions about Trump’s suitability to serve as commander in chief in future.

— Trump’s decision to fuse his criminal defense with his presidential campaign also raises huge questions about his own prospects. Criminal defendants find that their time and schedule is increasingly at the whim of the courts as they must appear at various hearings even before a trial. This potentially could cause havoc with Trump’s political schedule. He is already awaiting trial next March, in the thick of primary season, after pleading not guilty to falsifying business records in a Manhattan case linked to a hush money payment to a former adult film star. Trump is likely to also find out by the end of the summer whether he will be charged in an investigation by Fani Willis, a district attorney in Georgia, over his attempts to steal Biden’s 2020 election win in the critical swing state.

Apart from the logistical complications, Trump’s strategy – and his rhetoric on Tuesday evening – also begs another question. Do Republican voters want to fully commit to a campaign almost exclusively focusing on his personal grievances and legal fate? Other than warning that he is taking heat from the Justice Department to shield his supporters, Trump hasn’t offered much of a campaign message to GOP voters on the economy, health care, national security, education and other key issues. His fighter’s mentality and flouting of rules is core to his appeal, but his personality cult has tended to drown out the party’s ideological priorities in recent years. One of his top GOP rivals, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has tried to get at this point by arguing that he could be far more effective in implementing “Make America Great Again” political priorities as president.

The salience of Trump’s grievance campaign could become even more relevant in a general election. The former president already had an uphill task in appealing to suburban swing voters he alienated in 2020. A campaign that seems like a personal crusade to keep himself out of jail might make the task of winning them back even more complicated.

 

[JTsyo]

So when Trump wins the presidency again in 2024, will the FBI and DOJ finally be free to actually prosecute Hillary and Hunter? Because this bullshit has gone on long enough, we all know they are guilty, the evidence is out there, if you do your own research.

Why do I need to do the research when the House already has? Are you saying I shouldn't trust the House Republicans? If they find something illegal they can refer it to the DOJ.

On May 10, 2023, Comer released a report of interim findings and held a press conference with other Republican members of the committee. The report did not find any evidence of wrongdoing by Biden. The 36-page report provided some details about foreign wire transfers related to Hunter Biden, but did not assert there was any illegality, nor that there was any evidence of money directed to Joe Biden.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

We all know that keeping the Orangutan caged would be a logistical nightmare.

Here's my proposal.

Plead guilty to all charges.
Sentenced to the maximum on each.
Sentences suspended and put under the watch of the US Probation Office.
NO political appearances of any kind including campaining for or endorsing others.
NO fundraising for any person, office or cause.
Revoked passport, no international travel.
May not seek or accept any Pardon from anyone.
NO appeals to higher courts of any kind.


Comply and he dies in peaceful relative obscurity.
Violate, the full sentence gets invoked automatically with no further court action.

Yes, I know I'm dreaming.

 

[Fenixgoon]

We all know that keeping the Orangutan caged would be a logistical nightmare.

Here's my proposal.

Plead guilty to all charges.
Sentenced to the maximum on each.
Sentences suspended and put under the watch of the US Probation Office.
NO political appearances of any kind including campaining for or endorsing others.
NO fundraising for any person, office or cause.
Revoked passport, no international travel.
May not seek or accept any Pardon from anyone.
NO appeals to higher courts of any kind.


Comply and he dies in peaceful relative obscurity.
Violate, the full sentence gets invoked automatically with no further court action.

Yes, I know I'm dreaming.

I mean, why bother with the offer? Trump can't keep his mouth shut.

 

[nOOky]

Why do I need to do the research when the House already has? Are you saying I shouldn't trust the House Republicans? If they find something illegal they can refer it to the DOJ.

Sorry, my post was satire, I assumed the /s wasn't neede, my bad.

 

[you2]

Wow, according to Sen. Rubio, you can rob a bank, take the money with you, but as long as you didn't cash it in, there was no crime.

Republicans Contort Themselves In New Ways To Defend Trump

“There's no allegation that there was harm done to the national security,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

www.huffpost.com

Come on get a life; we all know the law should be rigidly enforced as long as the person being prosecuted is not a republican; otherwise it was no big deal and we should just ignore it.

 

[MrSquished]

No, the outcome is extremely likely to be a conviction if it goes to the jury and/or a pardon if a Republican wins in 2024. These are by FAR the most likely outcomes.

This is a cousin to how people always think Trump is going to win elections despite his abysmal electoral performances. His only win was where he lost the popular vote by millions. He's bad at politics!

It's amazing how morons still think the popular vote matters when it comes to actual power in this country and somehow that is the metric. Should it be, yes. But it isn't so it's not really a metric about being good at politics. Winning the presidency requires electoral votes of a certain amount, and he certainly won in that way.

The fact is Donald Trump became president, and has extremely dramatically altered the political landscape since then, and that takes being pretty good at politics on some level. He had his finger on the pulse of the right amount of people and the right states and got it done. And he has walked this country backwards quite a bit. As much as he is a bumbling fool in many ways, that's being quite successful of politics.

 

[pmv]

The fact is Donald Trump became president, and has extremely dramatically altered the political landscape since then, and that takes being pretty good at politics on some level. He had his finger on the pulse of the right amount of people and the right states and got it done. And he has walked this country backwards quite a bit. As much as he is a bumbling fool in many ways, that's being quite successful of politics.

Well, yeah, but that bolded bit is crucial. He's good at politics by accident. He just happens to have the personality disorder that fits the current state of the country. Also he won in 2016 in part because Hilary is quite bad at politics. It's extremely fortunate that he's not good at politics at all levels or things would be much worse.

 

[fskimospy]

Well, yeah, but that bolded bit is crucial. He's good at politics by accident. He just happens to have the personality disorder that fits the current state of the country. Also he won in 2016 in part because Hilary is quite bad at politics. It's extremely fortunate that he's not good at politics at all levels or things would be much worse.

Donald Trump underperforms a replacement level Republican in every election he’s in. That means he’s bad at politics, at least as far as general elections go.

Edit: it’s reasonable to say that once in power he’s able to transform things and that’s definitely politics, but he’s bad at winning elections.

 

[MrSquished]

Well, yeah, but that bolded bit is crucial. He's good at politics by accident. He just happens to have the personality disorder that fits the current state of the country. Also he won in 2016 in part because Hilary is quite bad at politics. It's extremely fortunate that he's not good at politics at all levels or things would be much worse.

I never said he was a great politician but he destroyed his republican opposition in the 2016 primaries and won the election fair and square and on the first night Hillary conceded, It wasn't even drawn out at all. The popular vote is moot, which is part of the reason this country is a joke politically, but It's not what counts and so winning the presidency is not being good at getting the popular vote but getting the electoral vote.

The fact is he won the 2016 election fair and square. And while I don't think it makes him a great politician, It doesn't make him a bad one either for that victory.

 

[you2]

The thing to keep in mind is that Trump sez a lot of things that shouldn't be said. They shouldn't be said because they are untrue and bad for the country; but they energize people and in that fashion gain votes.

Lets give an example; his attacks on [pick your favorite, immigrants, asian, muslem, ...]. Frequently the specifics of what he is saying is not true; but it makes people hate those groups and indeed targeted violence has gone up against those groups but doing what he suggest doesn't actually solve the problem he is stating. For example immigrants are taking your job; the reason your salary is low or you are unemployed is not your fault but the fault of immigrants. I was talking to a friend about his unemployed sister and how she was blaming all her ills on immigrants but the truth of the matter is she didn't want the sort of jobs immigrants were taking and even when they were available she refused to do them.... but being able to blame immigrants for her lack of motivation was very convenient.


We can see why this is bad for the country for the increase of violence and the difficulty in hiring people in certain industry but those who are happy to blame immigrants aren't going to dig into those details.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Lolololol

https://twitter.com/x/status/1669116162532155394

 

[brycejones]

Lolololol

https://twitter.com/x/status/1669116162532155394

That’s weirdly specific. WTF has Eric been doing in Barrons’s room while on the nose candy?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

That’s weirdly specific. WTF has Eric been doing in Barrons’s room while on the nose candy?

Did two scoops hide a document in Barrons undies draw?

 

[compcons]

The thing to keep in mind is that Trump sez a lot of things that shouldn't be said. They shouldn't be said because they are untrue and bad for the country; but they energize people and in that fashion gain votes.

Lets give an example; his attacks on [pick your favorite, immigrants, asian, muslem, ...]. Frequently the specifics of what he is saying is not true; but it makes people hate those groups and indeed targeted violence has gone up against those groups but doing what he suggest doesn't actually solve the problem he is stating. For example immigrants are taking your job; the reason your salary is low or you are unemployed is not your fault but the fault of immigrants. I was talking to a friend about his unemployed sister and how she was blaming all her ills on immigrants but the truth of the matter is she didn't want the sort of jobs immigrants were taking and even when they were available she refused to do them.... but being able to blame immigrants for her lack of motivation was very convenient.


We can see why this is bad for the country for the increase of violence and the difficulty in hiring people in certain industry but those who are happy to blame immigrants aren't going to dig into those details.

Trump speaks fluent Hitlerish.

 

[pmv]

I never said he was a great politician but he destroyed his republican opposition in the 2016 primaries and won the election fair and square and on the first night Hillary conceded, It wasn't even drawn out at all. The popular vote is moot, which is part of the reason this country is a joke politically, but It's not what counts and so winning the presidency is not being good at getting the popular vote but getting the electoral vote.

The fact is he won the 2016 election fair and square. And while I don't think it makes him a great politician, It doesn't make him a bad one either for that victory.

He had several things going for him. Firstly he's quite racist, and a significant proportion of the electorate are quite racist, so he represents their views.

Secondly, despite being an ultra-rich privileged guy, he clearly has vast reserves of resentment, and a sense of feeling disrespected by the full-on elites, and that probably gives him an ability to empathise and sense the mood of another, overlapping, significant proportion of the electorate who feel a similar type of resentment. That's a powerful political skill to have.

He appears to be rubbish at long-term planning, though. It's clearly all about his instincts in-the-moment.

 

[soundforbjt]

Great... just found out that there’s no minimum sentences for any of the charges. That means even if trump is found guilty she can give him no sentence if she chooses with zero consequences.

 

[JTsyo]

Trump is no mystery. He's a populist and at certain times in history people turn to populists. They never last though. It's not just an American phenomenon, all over the world right wing has been gaining power. Hopefully things start swinging back.

 

[woolfe9998]

He had several things going for him. Firstly he's quite racist, and a significant proportion of the electorate are quite racist, so he represents their views.

Secondly, despite being an ultra-rich privileged guy, he clearly has vast reserves of resentment, and a sense of feeling disrespected by the full-on elites, and that probably gives him an ability to empathise and sense the mood of another, overlapping, significant proportion of the electorate who feel a similar type of resentment. That's a powerful political skill to have.

He appears to be rubbish at long-term planning, though. It's clearly all about his instincts in-the-moment.

Nope, he has no "empathy" whatsoever. HIS "resentment" has to do with his pure narcissism, which in turn gives him a sense of entitlement. So when anyone criticizes him or opposes him in any way, he lashes out. Because he's a spoiled brat who never grew up.

But since he entered politics as a republican, he lashes out at people that conservative voters have been programmed through years of propaganda to despise, which is why they like him. Their "resentment," however, is based on a sense of in-group and out-group identity, i.e. tribalism.

Trump himself is casually racist the way many men of his generation are, but this is not at all core to his identity. He'll embrace any black person who slobbers at his feet or is useful for any reason. He has no group identify, no sense of kinship with any group. He attacks the people that conservatives hate, but he isn't one of them. They think he is, but it's a con.

Please do not use Trump in the same sentence with "empathy." You might want to bone up on your DSM-V.

9 Signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Having narcissistic tendencies are normal when they occur occasionally. Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is different. Symptoms are more severe, occur across different situations and environments, and make relationships with others challenging, if not impossible.

www.dukehealth.org

 

[skyking]

^ he is a great study in the classic definition of a NPD, if you can keep your bile down while doing so.

 

[zinfamous]

Lolololol

https://twitter.com/x/status/1669116162532155394

The hell?

This one been raiding Jr's special sugar drawer, which he was told that he absolutely must not do?

 

[cytg111]

It is