Former President Donald Trump was indicted for an unprecedented third time on August 1, adding another set of serious federal charges to the mounting legal issues he faces.
Trump pushed the big lie that the election was stolen. Trump lost in the courts^[1] including the Supreme Court.^[2] Then he tried to pressure state officials.^[3] He tried to pressure Pence.^[4]
So what does Trump do after exhausting all nonviolent methods of overturning the election? He turns to his supporters and lights them up making inflammatory statements such as;
We are going to fight for the survival of the nation.
Now is not the time to retreat, its to fight harder.
We will never give in, never back down, never surrender.
We will fight like hell.
You have to get your people to fight.
He primed them for weeks.
State officials had started getting death threats weeks before the attempted insurrection following the general election.^[5] Trump saw first hand what violence was being created as his supporters rioted and vandalized black churches in Washington back in December.^[6]
Trump didn’t stop his incitement after the initial violence, he got more specific. He told his supporters how, when, and where. He gave them 18 days notice inviting them to the rally telling them to be there, that it will be wild.^[7] And on the day of the insurrection Trump told his supporters to march on the Capitol and fight like hell.
Following the riot Trump continued to promote the big lie that had incited the insurrection. After the mob was dispersed, Trump praised and sympathized with the mob in a video he released, claiming once again that the election had been stolen.^[8] Then he praised the insurrection in a tweet after the mob had been dispersed. He told his mob to remember Jan. 6 forever. He said that he loved the insurrectionists and that the violent mob were special people.
My “favorite” but was when he heard that some of them had weapons that were denied access, and he angrily told his staff to let the weapons into the capital, because they weren’t coming to hurt him.
We need to handle this carefully. I feel martyr vibes coming from all of this bullshit if he is found guilty. Maybe it’s the part of the US I live in, and the political slant of the people therein, but I see him and his supporters using this to do something even more epically stupid than trying to invade the capital.
I agree, but I don’t know what could be done differently? If people refuse to acknowledge a single thread of evidence that Trump tried to overturn a legitimate election, what can be done to reassure them if he’s put in prison for doing it? The options are give him a fair trial, and sentence him if found guilty or just ignore his crimes completely.
On the other hand, if we’re afraid to prosecute insurrection leaders because of fear of resulting violence, that’s kinda definitionally terrorism (and specifically losing to the terrorists).
I’m not American, and I don’t know exactly what the legal differences are between “indicted”, “charged” and “accused”.
When is he going to be put in handcuffs and detained in a jail cell like a normal person would be if they were suspected of committing a crime (like stealing a handbag for example) but not convicted yet?
12 jurors will decide on his guilt (the standard is proof beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal case) after reviewing evidence during his trial which will probably happen next year. If found guilty, the judge will choose a sentence that’s within guidelines outlined in law. Then he’ll be pardoned by the next Republican president.
The jury selection process will need to be particularly thorough for this trial to avoid a bias one way or another. It would be interesting to hear what questions they ask of potential jurors.
Trump has such a large fanatical following that it’s almost certain the next Republican president will use a Trump pardon as a poker chip for gaining party support on whatever plan he needs pushed.
So personally I think it’s almost certain Trump will be pardoned.
But it’s possible he could die in prison before that happens.
The real weirdness happens if he is found guilty under state charges (in New York) and wins the presidency. The federal president can’t pardon state charges - he would take the oath in prison!
The difference between “charged” and “indicted” is who finds probable cause that you committed a crime. If it was a prosecutor, you are charged. If it’s a jury, you’re indicted.
Accused, legally speaking, is a noun meaning a person who has been arrested for or charged with a crime
I’m not American, and I don’t know exactly what the legal differences are between “indicted”, “charged” and “accused”. When is he going to be put in handcuffs and detained in a jail cell like a normal person would be if they were suspected of committing a crime (like stealing a handbag for example) but not convicted yet?
He is getting slightly better than normal rich person with expensive lawyer treatment.
America, as a pure service economy has prices for bribery and extortion as well as minimum service levels for the legal system. If you pay for economy (with your life) you get a defense attorney appointed by the state who sits across from the judge and DA you’re going to have to deal with, and has lunch with them, or makes deals in the bathroom… They’ll fight to make sure their life doesn’t get disrupted a whole lot and they can keep defending the endless stream of defendants.
The middle tier is the “hire a reptable firm, and get a junior associate” level of service, that’s where you get someone who’s overworked, and desperately trying to keep all their partner’s cases going, and they can spend 1/10th of their time on your case, they don’t have any worries about not having a job though so they can dedicate the time in court to defending you.
The top tier is the “hire a reputable firm, and you get a named partner” they care about their reputation, and make sure they only take cases that will make them look good. And they look good by doing the best damn job they can in front of the cameras, in their filings, and in front of their client. You get the white glove treatment, and 90% of the time of the junior associates helping the partner.
It’s no wonder why you typically only get the “Go home and sleep it off” result from an indictment from the highest tier of service.
Money seems to be the difference. I’ve been through the legal system and let me tell you that I wouldn’t be out campaigning if I had three indictments. I’d be sitting in a cell waiting for trial or a plea deal. The fact that he has been spared the same humiliation that anyone else would have been is a crime in and of itself.
Money and support from top and bottom. Rich assholes are supporting him as well as his cult. His biggest asset is probably his ability to sell himself to the ignorant. People criticize his way of speaking, but it’s very effective with the toddlers he’s appealing to.
I am so relieved that the special prosecutor is defending the rule of law with these indictments. If the Republicans (and not just Trump) got away with trying to overturn the election we could lose our democracy. We still can, but at least they are going to trial against this would-be tyrant and some of the people who helped him.
You kinda already did when the founding fathers wrote checks and balances into the constitution conveniently forgot that political parties are a thing.
There are no checks and balances if the ones that are supposed to check and balance you are on your team.
The post I responded to says "why the hell so you need a judge to rule he is a criminal’. It is not the grand jury indictment (that is a different conversation to be had) it is that comment
We aren’t the media here. We don’t have to play the “innocent until proven guilty or else he’ll sue us” game. The man clearly committed the crimes. He did it on national television. You can watch him tell people to “fight like hell” and tell them to march to the Capitol. It is an indisputable fact that he then did nothing to stop the insurrection until hours later.
Why the hell do you need a judge to rule to determine that he’s a criminal? The judge is there to tell us what, if any, punishment he’ll get.
This is just like people claiming he isn’t a rapist because the ruling in the Carroll case didn’t explicitly call it rape, when any reasonable person with a basic understanding of what rape is would understand that it’s rape even if that doesn’t fit the strict legal definition.
Trump is a criminal. He hoarded documents. He showed classified information to people who were not qualified to see it. He raped at least one woman. He fomented an insurrection. He tried to rig an election.
And you want a guilty verdict before admitting all of that? SMH.
We definitely do. We can’t eschew due process. It’s integral to our society.
Everyone, everyone deserves the opportunity to defend themselves.
That being said, he’s guilty as shit and I hope they throw the book at him. He wanted to steal the election and then invoke the military under the insurrection act to start putting down the resulting riots with gunfire. The man was going to kill Americans to keep his grip on power. It’s all outlined in the indictment documents.
A grand jury has ruled that the evidence presented is sufficient enough to warrant a trial to determine if a crime has been committed.
Typically grand juries are either random citizens (selected via jury duty), or volunteers within the community, depending on the city rules. They are not elected positions, nor are any legal qualifications required. It’s simply high level evidence, and descriptions of laws that may have been violated.
It’s not an indication of guilt, just that there’s enough of a question that is worth holding a trial to determine guilt.
Edit - at least, that’s what a grand jury usually is. I wouldn’t be surprised if federal charges on a former president requires more qualified grand jurors than the baker down the street, or retired carpenter with time to kill that comprises your typical grand jury
yeah and only in our wonderful country this schmuck is allowed to run for office from jail. I thought you can’t run for president after ur third indictment which he certainly has.
There’s nothing in the Constitution that says you can’t run from prison (Eugene V. Debs did it in 1920), and it also says nothing about three indictments.
For some reason the founding fathers didn’t anticipate that someone running from prison could ever become president. To be fair, before this fuckin clown, nobody else did either.
Incorrect. There was one other, technically, and they got a sizeable amount of votes considering they were incarcerated at the time — not enough to win or even skew the election numbers, but still. It happened.
lol it was one of those things that was just assumed by the general population that was never gonna happen so why worry about putting laws in place to prevent it. I think it’s safe to assume that we need to put laws into to. prevent this from happening before 2027
A president can pardon federal crimes but not state crimes.
Georgia law makes pardons an option only five years after the completion of a sentence. Getting a sentence commuted would require the approval of a state panel.
You ask me? Donny boy is royally fucked. The documents case is a few steps too far, and even a rich former president of the US will have to sit behind bars for that one. Hey SHOULD be in jail already for that one.
…aight so I’m fucking stupid or something and can’t figure out how to link to another user’s comment (it’s just the chain link icon literally on the comment right? …but when I click that it directs to a different comment… is this a bug or am I really just stupid?) but I don’t want to just steal this guy’s work, some I’m linking to his profile instead:
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