These judges like Wallace are people too, with families who cannot hide behind anonymity like a high profile jury in a mob case. They’ve seen what Trump’s Brown Shirts will do to those they don’t like: anything from incessant threatening phone calls to attempted murder with a hammer. What an impossible position to be in: serve justice, or risk your family being stalk and possibly assaulted.
This is how democracy dies. It takes very brave people in power to stand up to someone like Trump.
Judges take that risk every time they take a criminal case on. That criminal could always have friends who plot revenge on the judge. And it does happen and judges are aware of it. So that’s a poor excuse.
I also don’t believe ruling against him will lead to a civil war or anything like that. Not when January 6th was a complete failure. Most Americans, even Trump supporters, aren’t interested in picking up a gun and getting on the front lines.
Judges take that risk every time they take a criminal case on
The difference here is scale, they don’t usually have to worry about a third of the country hating their guts for making a decision
Nor is there a certainty in most cases that criminals will have people who want to harm a judge, unlike with Trump
Yes it’s a threat they see often, but it’s nowhere near the usual level they see it at and it’s very understandable why someone might be legitimately terrified of the situation
Understandable, but giving into terror is only going to bring more of it on you and everyone else too.
Also, I wonder if every soldier who ever got their life threatened or taken serving our military felt terror, and why their terror would be any less worthy than what these judges are feeling. Those judges took an oath to defend our country in their own way, and they need to make good on it.
Judges take that risk every time they take a criminal case on.
Not at the level of Trump, they don't.
What makes Trump unique is that he is the leader of a massive cult. Our retaliation and intimidation laws don't work so well against those kinds of people because they don't give direct messages to make something happen. They give public statements and weaponise the wackos who 'took things the wrong way'.
These wackos had the balls to storm the capitol. They won't think much about a judge's home.
Cults, mafias, and terrorist organizations have been doing the “troublesome priest” routine for forever, and prosecutors judges and juries have been able to see through their bullshit and apply laws anyway. It isn’t easy, and there’s certainly lots of times those organizations (mafias in particular) have been able to corrupt or intimidate people, but it got done and it can be done again.
This isn't like those. None of those even come close. Those have the power to maybe get someone, maybe even a few people, murdered. Trump's useful idiots were prepared to storm the capital and upend democracy in the USA, and they very nearly succeeded.
Trump doesn't operate like a traditional cult. There are no official cult power structures or communication channels. He just has to hold a press conference and let the mainstream media do its thing. He just needs to say 'we need to fight for our rights' and then mention a target in the vein of 'this person is a corrupt individual who undermines democracy' and they'll be at that person's house in thousands.
Which is why I wish they were much harsher on him when it came to violating gag orders.
Sure, they might be able to trace back evidence to pin on him. Years after the judge is dead.
These are the same people that stormed the capitol and the same people a single member of which stormed a US senator's house and fucked up her husband with a hammer simply because Trump constantly shit talked about her.
No I am not giving these people too much power. They are dangerous and they don't know limits. They've proven this much.
The last time a cult tried anything approaching this level of magnitude, they ended up coining the term 'drinking the kool-aid'
Most of those people who stormed the capital were all Infowars listeners following Alex Jones. Once Alex Jones saw that they were committing violence he immediately retreated and claimed they were all antifa. In many other rallies since then very few people show up. I think most of them are all talk hiding at the other end of a phone line. In the meantime any and all non-trump supporters should be armies up for self-defense.
Once Alex Jones saw that they were committing violence he immediately retreated and claimed they were all antifa. In many other rallies since then very few people show up
Of course he did. Alex Jones was a pawn, not a man in the know. He was already in deep shit over his Sandy Hook bullshit.
Jones never knew where the line between inciting mob action and keeping his ass covered lay. He frequently crossed it. Shit, he would frequently get into fights himself.
And yeah, relatively few people showed up to further rallies afterwards, but then even Trump knew it'd be fucking suicide to pull that shit again any time soon. Trump had to disown the actions of his mobs, something he had never done in the past. He did so because he knew he was in deep shit if he didn't.
But there are still millions that hang onto his every word, and chances are there are still thousands that will commit violence for it. And Trump is fighting for his life here.
Only takes a few in the crowd to break through. Imagine if one or a few of them got as far as Ashli Babbit did. The outcome of the riots could have been very different.
This is my point though. Very few people were armed and ready to kill or be killed. If just a few groups were armed they definitely would have succeeded. But they were cowards back then and are cowards now.
True, but that's no reason to be complacent. This could easily become a 'lessons learned' aspect for the Trump family too. They might do more to ensure that someone turns up armed and at the right spot, which will also be a lot easier for a judge's house than the Capitol building.
Heck, he doesn’t even have to do anything. Trump could disappear for good and I bet his followers would come to their own conclusions and pull some shit.
Rip the band-aid off. He got arrested four times in two weeks once people stopped pretending it could never happen. Put his fat ass in jail for one fucking day, on account of the crimes he is committing out loud in public, and watch this brain fog vanish.
I don’t think so. If they hold him in contempt then it becomes more likely his push for a mistrial succeeds. His goal is to push the trial time past election day, so then he can continue the argument that they can’t do anything to the president and he can pardon himself federally (assuming he wins or takes over after losing).
I’d love to see him be held accountable like an average person is, but I totally agree with their position of playing it safe. You don’t fuck around for fun when a want-to-be fascist dictator is in play. Either you execute him quickly or you make sure to do everything properly and give them no room to argue you cheated, because they’ll try no matter what.
It’s really that an appeal for mistrial goes to some other judge that might have maga up the ass. I don’t agree that this is the safe play, there’s a strong history of contempt being used in court as a deterrent and any skilled prosecutor would get intimately familiar with all the cases where public statements were made to intimidate witnesses and such.
It’s odd to say that Engoron is afraid to rule against Trump when he already ruled he’s guilty of fraud. I’d also love to see him fined a billion dollars or to spend time in jail for contempt of court but Trump and his team are baiting him to take more extreme action to argue bias on appeal. Keeping his orders beyond reasonable is probably the right move to protect his verdict moving forward. Same goes for Chutkin. She’s probably more reluctant to help Trump open a door to appeal than afraid to have him spend a night in jail or whatever.
No excuses, you take the risk of being targeted with each case. What they’re actually afraid of is to burn their God on the pyre. Just look at Cannon, she is clearly trying to avoid a Judas moment.
Congressional republicans really hung the entire country out to dry when they chose to cross that line with him. That's what it all comes back to. These questions should never be riding on individual judges; it's why the legislative branch was defined as its own thing and not just another arm of the president. But they signaled to everyone that his actions were just fine within the framework of the gov.
I mean the whole point of this country was to NOT have power consolidated in one office, and these clowns are just going full-steam ahead on sending us back there again, and dumping all of their resources into convincing the public it's a good thing. Some days I just don't know what kind of backward mirror world we fell into.
You make the basic mistake of assuming Republicans care about a republic or democracy. They do not. They want to RULE at any cost. Democracy itself is a barrier to them. Why would they EVER respect something even higher order like separation of powers?!
That's certainly the overall picture for the party, but at the lowest level these are still a bunch of actual, individual humans filling seats. So many of them are so forthcoming in speaking out about being on the wrong side of history the moment they step out of those roles. I would like to understand what's compelling them to consistently vote and speak in unison against the things they swore to uphold, and lie directly to our faces every day right up until the point where it doesn't matter anymore. Whatever is at work there is going to burn everything down eventually.
We USians gave that shithead Trump access to the largest spying network in the world and are surprised that Trump might be extorting and blackmailing judges.
This is, conceptually, a really important discussion. This author treats this important discussion like an early 2000s Myspace page.
As fodder in the spin wars, her ruling has a little something for everyone. Trump supporters can rightly note that Wallace rejected arguments (like mine!) that their guy is ineligible for the presidency; Trump critics can respond that, after trying the issue, she found Trump indeed engaged in the insurrection, even though he was not among the rioters at the Capitol that day.
This is just truly awful writing for such an important piece of potential American history.
This important piece of American history is kinda like an early 2000s Myspace page, or something embarrassing and juvenile like that. Like, let’s not forget that we’re dealing with an existential threat to our country and way of life that’s taken the form of Donald fuckin Trump, quite possibly the trashiest piece of 80s excess and reality TV to ever walk this planet. The whole thing is both very stupid and incredibly serious.
If it’s any comfort, I’m sure there were people in the 30s who thought getting messages from Hitler and FDR over those newfangled radios was kind of trashy too.
Holy shit. Let justice prevail. This asshole needs to be a convicted felon. Judges are getting scared to do their jobs.
I’m in the medical industry. I put blinders on every day. I don’t care what brought you here or why you’re handcuffed to the bed.
Yes, I’m proud to say I’ve worked in a prison ward and been swung at and almost stabbed a few times.
I still show up to do my job.
Putting out a hit list and having a cult of followers that intimidate you and disobey you to this degree is fucked up. Judges should be impartial, of course. That also should allow them the right to reign in a flagrant bullshitter and bully when they see one.
Why? If you are that rampant evil and disregard ANYTHING that actually holds western civilization together (which in itself is pretty ironic, considering the literal crusades against islam and the likes) and also do not uphold the constitution…and eel yourself out of every court to hold you responsible…well.
Unfortunately, self preservation and turning a blind eye to suffering are what psychopaths who want nothing but power excel at.
Expecting them to do the right thing is untenable. It goes against their nature. We are incredulous for all the reasons they are not remotely phased by bad behavior.
Pity they couldn’t court martial him. He was CiC when he fomented insurrection. That would really blow the conservative mind, with their military worship they wouldn’t know what to do. Attack the military for throwing trump in Leavenworth?
A very important distinction of the Commander-in-Chief is that they specifically are a civilian and are not a part of the military. That a civilian is above the military. A civilian non-combatant does not fall under the UCMJ. Civilian combatants (in a nation vs nation conflict) can fall under the UCMJ and routinely do in times of war in the US of course.
Pity they couldn’t court martial him. He was CiC when he fomented insurrection. That would really blow the conservative mind, with their military worship they wouldn’t know what to do. Attack the military for throwing trump in Leavenworth?
And they’ve succeeded in making appeals difficult. The judge made a factual ruling that Trump engaged in insurrection, so any appeals also must accept that as a fact.
It may not have been the outcome we hoped for, but it’s a strong step in the right direction.
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