Former President Trump criticized the judge presiding over his 2020 election case, just days after she warned him against making any “inflammatory statements” that could intimidate witnesses or prejudice the jury pool.
In a statement posted overnight on Truth Social, Trump called U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan “highly partisan” and “very biased & unfair.”
Yet to be seen. Chutkan has demonstrated that she's going to be the "find out" of "fuck around" in other aspects, but she also knows she is presiding over a uniquely historic case with potentially terminal consequences. Her Friday statement about inflammatory public comments demanding a swift trial fell short of what I would have liked, but I find her decision on the matter to be brilliantly fair, and unassailable.
Also note that the Government has not (so far as we know) made any motions in response to the defendant's weekend commentary. Based on the immediate motion for a protective order after the defendant's "I'm coming after you!" post, I might expect there to be a motion from the Government, and there's not (again, so far as we know). To me, this suggests that they know Judge Chutkan is already working on this, and does not need the Government or public pressure to be any greater than it already is. And if they know, defense knows, too.
I am hopeful, but the consequences (if any) for the defendant's weekend rants are going to be the point upon which the future of democracy turns. She has to know this, and I have to think that the reason we haven't heard anything from her yet is because she is considering very carefully what the response from the court will be.
It may feel like bullshit because we all know what he did, but they are being careful to not give him any legal grounds to appeal or move the trial. What’s funny is everyone knows there is a two tiered justice system, it’s just who is on which tier is different from person to person. Also trying to minimize collateral damage is important.
I don’t think they are ready to work out the kinks of jailing secret service as well. Best outcome is that he is in house arrest and the end of all of this.
While we're at it, let's do house arrest in an old castle, and make sure all of his friends have house arrest there as well. Maybe have him write a book of some kind, say "My Struggles" or something...
He isn’t being investigated or tried for either of those so at the same time we can contemplate what the outcome of his parking ticket would be. Who cares?
For what he is currently being investigated and tried for, I don’t believe he would see time in a real jail for. Likely spent the remainder of his life in a decent house with no opportunity to leave. Secret service won’t be stripped and I don’t see them sharing a jail cell with him. Let alone having a random inmate share a cell or mess hall with a former president.
I just hope whatever outcome he gets includes the inability to post to social media. As much as the punishment needs to dissuade people in the future from behaving like him, I just want to stop hearing his opinion on stuff. It physically hurts to hear his thoughts on stuff. And no matter how hard I try, there seems to be no escape as long as his thoughts exist on social media somewhere, they exist on it everywhere…
John Dean served prison time in a military facility for Watergate, and he was just Nixon's White House counsel. We have the means to imprison a former president outside of the existing federal prison system.
I think house arrest is the most rational and likely outcome but a military like facility is possible too, I hadn’t considered that and am not sure what it would look like. Probably the most secure outcome
I read somewhere that the order of “locking him up” could be appealed extensively and would be an effective delay tactic for him. I think that is why the DC judge wants to speed things up in response to this behavior.
If you mean that he can appeal a contempt charge, that is technically true, but the appeal for that would take place after the main trial and would not prevent him from being held in detention until then.
As I understand it, knowing that throwing him in jail in contempt of court would likely set off riots, her threat to him for interfering in the process was to speed up the trial. Considering his only real defense is pushing conviction until after the election, I think Trump will soon learn the meaning of “the right to a speedy trial.”
There won’t be any riots when he goes to jail. There will be ten dumb fat people nobody gives a fuck about that show up with their Trump colors, and if they fuck around they will end up in jail with Trump.
I’m torn, because I think that incitement would bring about the end of the trump era much more quickly, as it’ll get put down hard. But I also don’t want to advocate violence or for stupid people to get hurt for no reason other than their ignorance.
Ignorance has been out the window for a decade. These people knowingly engaged in falsehoods long enough to convince themselves they're right, and I am sick of giving them a pass as if they're just dumb, poorly informed, unable to find alternatives to their hate rhetoric, etc.
At a certain point, it's malice. The saying about not attributing to malice what can be explained by ignorance is for situations *where all else is equal." We are beyond that point.
Throw the book at him. Let them riot and ruin their own shithole counties, or let them try to drive to big cities to attack them, and then throw the book at them too. I'm done accepting responsibility for the actions of these people, who have been given countless opportunities to not be assholes.
The thing is, both sides have a right to a speedy trial. The prosecution, and the citizens they represent, have been waiting three and a half years already.
Simply because of the complexity of it all. I mean it's never happened before so the DOJ and state justice dept's had to triple-check that each and every "i" was dotted and "t" was crossed. Never mind the millions of pages of evidence that had be collated, then backed up from other sources.
Right? This whole “we can’t punish criminals because other criminals might engage in criminal behavior” attitude is mystifying to me. What ever happened with not negotiating with terrorists as a national policy?
It is very odd, someone was claiming we should have let him win the other day because this would have been less dangerous. That is so fucked up. Appeasement is almost never a viable long-term solution is politics and geo-politics. The best time to deal with an abusive force is yesterday, not pulling the Band-Aid early is just making things worse. They will riots anyway, unless he turns America into autocracy, only at this point we won’t have to worry about riots.
It is very odd, someone was claiming we should have let him win the other day because this would have been less dangerous.
Anyone saying that is either a shill or a coward, and neither are people we should listen to. Our grandparents and great grandparents didn’t sacrifice everything in WWII just for us to allow fucking Nazis to waltz into power uncontested.
Garland said “we will follow up on everyone regardless of who they are”. We know now for a fact he was lying.
Every judge says they’re going to treat him like any other defendant. We are in the process of learning that they are lying.
I’m not saying Chutkan is going to obviously spike the case like Cannon or Judge Rittenhouse, I think she’s going to try to run a decent trial if it gets to that point.
But pre-trial punishment? Not a snowflake’s chance in hell. These judges all still want to be invited to cocktail parties and given country club memberships. The elite is loyal to the elite.
Part of the problem is that he wants badly for them to find him in contempt - to his followers it will be absolute proof that it’s a witch hunt. I can already read the headlines about how they locked him up to silence him and BS like that.
I’m not necessarily saying that means they still shouldnt do it, but there are more reasons than corruption to tread softly here
why would the opinion of his followers even matter tho? this is a court case, not an election. even if it were an election, they’d vote for him regardless.
The court absolutely needs to drag Trump back down to Earth and demonstrate that no one is above the law. At the same time, Judges are supposed to be impartial and part of Judge Chutkan’s statement, “It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day” could be seen as prejudicial. Whether or not she acts in an unbiased way is an entirely separate issue. The appearance of bias will open the door to an appeal of any verdict against Trump.
Ya, Trump belongs in prison; but, it’s going to need to be done in the most scrupulous way possible to keep him from wiggling out of accountability.
Because, by pushing the ideal we do make progress. It’s easy to look at our current situation and bemoan the fact that we aren’t there yet, and we still have progr ess to make. But, the truly false statement is “we make no progress towards making it true”. Pick up a history book and spend some time critically reading. What happens today is a far cry from even 50 years ago,. Is it perfect? Not even close. But it is better. Throwing up our hands in defeat, because we aren’t there yet, serves only to allow things to stagnate. We are pushing forward, but yes, progress is painfully slow. It always has been, and probably always will be. But, that doesn’t mean we should stop pushing.
All ideals are false. The entire point of ideals is to strive to change the world to meet them.
And whether those efforts see fruition this year, this decade, or even in your lifetime, is beside the point. Ideals are a multigenerational project, with all the ups and downs that implies.
He may be doing this intentionally. He and his team may be looking for a judicial reaction in order to use it as grounds to move the trial to another location citing unfair bias.
Speeding up the trial would be a good move. The judge still needs to be careful so that she doesn't give grounds for appeal. I vote for huge fines.
This is one of the extremely rare instances where I can almost sympathize with the man. Making inflammatory statements is his whole shtick. It’s all he knows. To him, being told not to make inflammatory statements is like being told not to talk at all.
(Personally, I’d be perfectly happy if I never heard from him again, but that’s beside the point.)
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