All things related to Donald Trump's ever-growing legal woes

@LJS9502_basic: How do you know no other president has taken documents?

My god... 🤣

So you have nothing, as expected.

The law should only apply to poor people.😎

@eastland: the DOJ didn't go out on a fishing expedition against Trump in the documents case, originally NARA knew he kept White House presidential records so they kept hounding Trump to hand them over, never noticeable stuff like his love letters from Kim Jong Un that made his hands look dainty, or the infamous hurricane Sharpie map, but after a year his lawyers said they had about 15 boxes of White House presidential records and facilitated their return to NARA. It was NARA who noticed that among the returned documents that sensitive classified materials were among them, which prompted them to notify the DOJ who had no choice but to investigate the issue given its severity. The issue then went before a grand jury, so this isn't a unilateral action by DOJ lead by some deep state pittbull of Joe Biden that fervently hates Trump. It's fair and equal justice by an independent government branch.

The FBI then took on the task of asking for and retrieving any classified materials, which the Trump legal team returned some in early June. They also requested security footage from Mar-A-Lago and which showed the moving of the boxes containing classified materials to and from the storage room they were supposedly kept, along with witness statements, prompted the warranted August search of the Mar-A-Lago property that uncovered additional troves of classified documents.

Trump isn't being pursued because some honest slip up. He could have likely avoided prosecution by cooperating, despite his behavior leading up to that point, but he valued keeping these despite the consequences. It's a mess entirely if his own making. He's already been given considerable legal deference on account of his stature as a former president, and he exhausted that goodwill for all its worth.

Even one of his own lawyers tried reducing the charges if Trump agreed to cooperate and Trump booted him from his legal team because Trump doesn't want people who tell him what he needs to hear, he keeps brown nosing sycophants around him instead who tell him just what he wants to hear. It's his damn fault for never listening to people who know better than him. He had many outs, his narcassism prevented that.

Trump has an unprecedented amount of legal scrutiny on him for no other reason that he's an unprecedented egregious offender. And he's enabled by a whackadoodle base of supporters rhat have a cult like admiration of him and think he's incapable of doing wrong.

@Pedro: "The law should only apply to poor people."

Or people who claim to be worth over $10 billion that are only worth at best a small fraction of that.

@lamprey263: Oh I don't think he can do no wrong for a minute, I'd just believe that if the genuine war crimes of presidents past isn't enough to warrant a trial but mishandling of documents is the whole process is a sham, there is literally no moral high ground for anyone in this trial to take

Using Bush to clear Trump’s name?

Whataboutism. However, and far be it from me to defend Bush, but he did get congressional approval. Trump stole VERY sensitive documents and refused to return them. They weren't secure. Anyone could read them if they wanted. Classified documents are kept in a SCIF.

@LJS9502_basic: Also, Trump took these actions *after* he stopped being president. That's very different from a decision taken while in office.

I'm sorry, but this is such a bad take.

If you took US military secrets to an unsecure location without authorisation, and showed them to people, and refused to give them back for over a year...you'd be in prison for the rest of your life.

If Tom Cruise took military secrets, etc., he'd go to prison for the rest of his life (although his lawyers would put up a hell of a fight).

If Trump took military secrets, etc., why should we ignore that or treat that any differently? He isn't above the law, the evidence is extremely clear, and this is the sort of crime that could significantly endanger the US and its allies.

The law should be applied equally to everyone. That doesn't mean "let's ignore Trump's crimes because other people probably committed crimes". It means "let's lock up Trump and anyone else who flagrantly commits crimes and them covers then up in the stupidest ways".

@Planeforger: it just strikes me that as a society when it comes to 'national security' people will turn a blind eye to genuine war crimes, families being blown up in their own homes, dead children, but the mishandling of documents and we have national outrage.

War crimes and war are not the same thing.

So apparently Donald gave a Fox News interview the other night that significantly harmed his defence.

In the interview, he said he had the documents, they were declassified, and he mainly wanted to withhold them so that we could sort through them and remove his personal belongings.

All of that flies in the face of his previous statements (ie. saying they were planted), and doesn't line up with common sense nor the evidence against him (for example, if he still needed to sort the documents, why did he make a formal declaration saying they had been fully examined and returned?).

He's really running out of options here. If there's a part two of this interview, you could basically get anyone on this forum to run a successful prosecution against him.

@Planeforger: wasn't a good weekend for Trump, with Bill Barr going on TV saying Donald Trunp's legal woes are a mess of his own making, to that horrible interview on Fox News with Brett Baier that paints an incoherent legal defense, things aren't looking good:

I hear last night his documents case is kicking off in August. And that was all before today, (BREAKING NEWS!!) Word is Mark Meadows has flipped, granted limited immunity, and the DC grand jury is rumored to be voting on new indictments starting tomorrow. Trump's head has to be spinning.

Poor guy, someone should tell him to go to a nice retirement home. He was always human trash but right now he's just an old fart that completely lost the plot.

It's obvious to me that Trump doesn't care about the legal venue, he's going to be making concerted efforts to make his case in the court of public opinion, hoping that he can persuade enough people to his side, and perhaps a few of those will end up on the jury, or Cannon will buy into it.

This is all a PR battle for him. He's conned and successfully sold people lies his entire life, he's not going to stop now when his freedom literally depends on it.

I mean...this is a federal case. The public and their opinions can't save him and if he thinks they can...boy he's stupider than we all thought he was.And dare I say, I think we generally thought he and his followers were pretty damn stupid already.

No, he's not going to get plants on the jury through these displays of stupidity.

@MirkoS77: "It's obvious to me that Trump doesn't care about the legal venue, he's going to be making concerted efforts to make his case in the court of public opinion, hoping that he can persuade enough people to his side, and perhaps a few of those will end up on the jury, or Cannon will buy into it."

I think at best he'd just have a hung jury. Prosecution would just go back to court again. Not that the thought hasn't crossed my mind too, but Jack Smith got this through a Florida grand jury, so who knows. For now, Trump's ramblings about the case aren't doing him any favors with people who might be inclined to be sympathetic to him. His public media defense is incoherent, inconsistent, and contradictory. He's botching his own effort to present reasonable doubt by spewing maddening chaos.

The presidential race has become a competition between someone who can't put sentences together and someone that puts them together to incriminate himself in public unprompted.

So all the time that trump rambles and makes up his own words is coherent to you?

Appears to be coherent to some 70million + Americans.

Education system needs an overhaul and maybe an extra year or two of study just devoted to economics, civics, and critical thinking.

That sound like some woke/CRT thinking. Can’t have that. :P

Another year in high school might be a good idea.

@adrian1480, @lamprey263

I don't know, in all fairness, Trump has been remarkably successful in selling people a bill of goods. It got him the presidency, didn't it? Stupid it may be as he's never faced federal charges, but you can't blame the guy for sticking with what works.

I still don't think he's going to be seeing any significant penalty regardless of the outcome, prison time, as he is bigger than himself. He represents the US, and I think he'll be granted consideration solely due to the fact that the US wants to spare itself the embarrassment of incarcerating a former executive.

It would be more embarrassing not to if he's found guilty. Other countries do, in fact, incarcerate leaders if they are guilty of crimes.

Oh I have little doubt that he's going to get convicted, only that he'll see any real consequences for it. Probably house arrest at his luxury resort for a few months if anything.

He's charged with serious crimes.

I know. He's also a former president. If you don't think that's going to grant him certain considerations, I don't think that's really realistic. I cannot see him going to prison, though I'd be very pleased if he did. He deserves it.

I'm definitely agreeing with MirkoS77. I want Trump to go to jail, but he's a former president, I'll believe it when I see it happen.

So will I, here's to hoping.

Well, appealing to people's fears, bigotry, and prejudices is pretty easy and will get you pretty far with a lot of humanity as long as you have some form of charisma. Look at the other grifters on the right: people like Sean Hannity, Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and the like. All hustlers and grifters appealing to the worst instincts of people and winning them over because that messaging and packaging appeals to many people. Especially those who struggle with understanding their place and safety in an ever-changing world.

History is full of stories of charismatic scumbags who used divide and conquer tactics to gain power.

Pretty awesome that you guys are so open for a coup. I mean pretty awesome if you wish to become a dictator. Not if you want to live in a democracy.

Not sure I follow. Both of us want to see the law applied to the former president.

You got no expectation of him seeing consequences for his actions.

Durham is so stupid he implicate and reveal himself with the congress audience - to be part of the corruption.

Time for investigation of Durham and maybe impeach him. Durham is liar and irresponsible - he has the evidence but did not recommend to prosecute Hillary. He is lying of no evidence but we have the proof.

Durham wasted the chance to confront Swellwell and Schiff and tell them the same of the DOJ that Trump is acquitted and innocent in the Mueller Report but he did not prepare to bring down the lib contorted view of the clear result of the report. Durham expose the corruption of the FBI and call Mueller a patriot bc of exonorate Trump with the report.

Shame to Schiff and Shame to Durham.

Now do the libs stand and confront the corrupt exposed FBI - no the libs distract and distract - why we must defund the FBI. true patriots needs to stand up and take the office back.

Now Adam Schiff owe the country $16 Million Dollars. Libs owe Trump the Presidency for defamation and aspersion of the Trump proper deal with Ukraine. America First, we must be sure to trust the country of Ukraine but how do we know with the corrupt government??? That is why we need to investigate the Biden Crime Family and Burisma. Trump is not stupid and Americans are not stupid.

We Protect The Republic.

How do libs ignore this to wear blinders to the Bidens?

Now you see why there is mistrust of NATO and Ukraine and FBI and DOJ and libs.

We Must Save The Republic.

Well said my guy.

It's bigger than Trump. It's the entire DOJ and FBI. It's the government in general. The career politicians, the beauracrats in DC, the lobbyists, the donors.

It's a mess my friend.

It's gotten so blatantly crooked, they run on unequal justice, selective prosecutions. They choose who they will use the law against. Nothing about it is equal. Trump is seen as a threat to many of these slimebags. They are afraid he will ruin their party. It's gotten to a point where I'm not just voting for Trump for his policies (which I like for the most part) but to defy these dickbags trying to weaponized the DOJ to force him out. That's not freedom, we can't let the government defy the will of the people for their own personal gain and power.

They Hate Trump.

But I hate Them!!!

Enemy of my Enemy is a friend, *something something something*

What’s that mean?

Not expecting Trump to face consequences isn’t being “open to a coup”.

@thatforumuser: Mueller Report implicated trump as guilty of obstruction in several instances. He was not exonerated in that report. Clinton was investigated. They found nothing that rises to a significant level.

Spare us.

Trump IS a threat, and so are you if you support him. Thankfully, real Americans repudiated him in 2020, in a historic midterm upset, and they’ll do so again in 2024.

Why didn’t Comey, a Republican, prosecute Hillary when he had the chance? Blame your own party. It is idiotic to view the discretion of one prosecutor and claim it a blanket indictment upon an entire institution such as the DOJ or FBI. Aside, Trump broke the law. Explicitly and flagrantly beyond any ability to refute (he is on tape ffs), actually read the indictment instead of whining unfairness and victimhood.

How you can want someone who so causally shared our national security for president and claim to care for America is laughable.

@MirkoS77:Comey the RINO, Barr the RINO, they do the same thing make a big controversy and the media pay them to talk on TV the rest of the life and write books. The true patriots want to bring the evidence to a court but follow the money people get paid more if they do not fix the problem so they can continue to make MSM money!! Grarantee Durham will be on television like the RINOs.

@LJS9502_basic: Mueller report exonerated Trump this is the conlusion - face reality of Trump aquittal. May be other people try and do a back deal again follow the money - you find corruption in every politic campaign but when Trump find it he fire the responsible person and expose them every time!!

No, no it did NOT. It said trump was guilty of obstruction but he didn't want to charge a sitting president.

Clinton investigation showed they smashed up 5 cell phones. was sending classified emails on an unprotected private server out of her house as Secretary of State. A position that has 0 authority to declassify anything. Comeys lame claim to fame is blatantly admitting to everyone she broke the law and let her off without a hitch. and you keep trying to act everything is fair. It shows a clear double standard.

Comey said the FBI's recommendation is that Clinton not face criminal charges for her actions. “Although there is evidence of potential violations regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” he said.

And don't get me started on the Mueller investigation and how the Trump-Russia hoax was based on a dossier made up of faulty evidence paid for and provided by Clintons team. Which is something scumbag Adam Schiff pushed while knowing.... just to attack Trump. Schiff should be in prison for intentionally lying to the American people about this and wasting millions of dollars on it. He abused his power to peddle falsehoods for political favor.

And you fell for it hook line seeker, I know a bunch of posters here fell for it. All lies and 6 years later... you will just put you head back down in the sand. Put those blinders back on.

Trump had boxes!!!! blah blah blah

@sargentd: Okay now do trump as president in the dining room of mar o largo talking on his phone about classified information and Ivanka having classified information on her personal cell phone.

Maybe Ivanka should have taken the clinton approach and smashed that cell phone into little pieces to avoid "ObStrUctioN"

Spare me lolololol

TRUMP 2024

Best president in my lifetime

So now we've gone full circle and the Trump cult is back at Hilary? That's funny.

They can't dispute the facts and they know it, so they obfuscate.

Lol, the only RINO is Trump, who supported democrats for most of his life, and only ran as a republican because he knew it would be most conducive to his demagoguery in harnessing phobia, fear, bigotry, and the worst in people which he used to propel himself to power. Hearing him label others RINOs is a hoot; the man doesn't have a single principled or ideological bone or care in his entire body, he is an opportunist, and he saw an opportunity to manipulate many to his gain. Which he very successfully did.

When you have a turnover rate the likes of Trump, who is facing like what.....a dozen former employees ("the best people!") who are calling him a moron and inept, perhaps it would behoove conservatives to maybe reflect on what the problem is. But no, they alienate Cheney.....CHENEY.....for the likes of their dear leader. Republicans don't want conservatism....they want cult, and anyone who stands against it is a "RINO".

No, Trump is, and he always has been.

A good read.