The Trump Arrest thread

Quote: Evenbob

Every legal person on the left and on the right is totally amazed at this indictment. Circus clown Alvin Bragg has taken the payment to Stormy Daniels and broke it into 34 expired statute misdemeanors and has indicated a felony was committed yet he fails to name the felony. He fails to name the crime that Trump is being accused of. No judge on the planet will let's just go to trial because there's no crime named, what would they be going to trial for. The felony which is not named is supposed to tie in all the expired misdemeanors so what they've got is the biggest legal nothing burger of all time. A first year law student would know better than to write an indictment this flimsy. What they've done is given Trump a gigantic boost into the nomination, and he's raising money at a record level. What a bunch of incompetent boobs. This takes Trump derangement syndrome to an entirely new level of absurdity.

Here’s what EB actually thought. ;)

https://diversitytomorrow.com/thread/3762/24/#post200316

What are peoples thoughts on his sentencing?

I doubt he will do any jail time but I sure hope that I am wrong.

Quote: ams288

Here’s what EB actually thought. ;)

https://diversitytomorrow.com/thread/3762/24/#post200316

Nowhere in there do I say weather Trump will be convicted or not. I said all that before the trial when they first brought the indictments. Ever since the trial started I have maintained that he will be found guilty mainly because I watch Alan Dershowitz on his podcast everyday and he wrote a book last year that said this very thing was going to happen. He has said every day since his trial started that Trump will be convicted. I also watch another lawyer's podcast who I respect and he said exactly the same thing.

Jonathan Turley has no use for Trump but he does respect the rule of law and he has said this whole thing has been a sham which hunt Banana Republic trial right from the beginning. He was in the courtroom today when they were reading the verdict and he was watching Trump with avid interest and he says Trump was the only person in the room who showed no emotion one way or the other when the verdict was being read. He was talking to his lawyers, kind of joking around and Turley says it was like he completely expected this verdict. Which is exactly what I said the other day, Trump wanted this verdict. In fact he had dinner with Dershowitz just last week and I'm sure he told him there was no chance that it was going to be a mistrial. It would be impossible in New York City. Another famous attorney just said Trump could have been arrested on any charge you could possibly think of and would have been convicted with absolutely no evidence if it was in New York City. There is no real law in New York City anymore. If you shoplift anything under $1,000 it's a misdemeanor and they let you go with no bail. If you got caught doing it a dozen times they'll let you go every time with no bail. This is causing record numbers of stores to close their doors on a daily basis and eventually there will be no more stores to steal from in New York City. Trump had to be convicted, every juror knew how they were going to vote the second they were chosen.

EB seems to be spiraling tonight.

I’m here for it.

The Onion cuts to the chase.

https://www.theonion.com/

Justice Alito’s wife has lowered her upside down traitor flag to half-staff.

I would love if Trump gets house arrest, we will get to see what his actual legal residence is (and if he attempted to vote.)

(Also, his "rallies" will be quite amusing if he has to do them virtually....)

Quote: Gandler

I would love if Trump gets house arrest, we will get to see what his actual legal residence is (and if he attempted to vote.)

Well no matter where they lock him up it will be a cold day in hell before his wife pays him a conjugal visit.

The poor cuckolded woman...she should divorce him while she still can; I cannot imagine she is enjoying her life at the moment.

This is why Trump was smiling as they read the verdict.

Thursday on CNN, following the announcement of a guilty verdict of former President Donald Trump on 34 counts by a Manhattan jury, CNN senior political contributor Scott Jennings predicted it would favor Republicans in the election cycle. “Well, if my phone and the text messages I’m receiving are any indication, every Republican in the country is madder than a wet hen,” he said. “I mean, people who are decidedly non-MAGA, not Trump fans are blowing up tonight saying this case never should have been brought, these are ridiculous charges. It was an egregious use of the criminal justice system. And I mean, I’m hearing people say I had no intention of voting for Donald Trump, and now I am."

And this is CNN. Remember back in 2016 when Trump got literally hundreds of millions of dollars in free air time on cable news? Because everybody was laughing at him and mocking him? What's going to happen now, between now and the election. Hundreds of millions of dollars in free air time. This is not October 20th, this isn't even August or July, we're still in May. For Trump this is another goose layed a huge golden egg. You'll see. Trump is a political genius.

It's OK to be scammed by the system by voting for Marxist candidates (Obama, Hillary, Biden, etc.), but good gosh, learn from the scam FASTER.

It's like this kid is five years old.

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JUST IN: Former Hillary 2016 Donor Shaun Maguire Explains Why He Contributed $300K To Trump After Today’s Jury Announcement — “My friends are gonna hate me — I’m willing to wade into this fire — Some of us need to be willing to”

May. 30, 2024 8:00 pm
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“I just donated $300k to Trump. I’m prepared to lose friends. Here’s why.

Back in 2016, I had drunk the media Kool-Aid and was scared out of my mind about Trump. As such, I donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and voted for her.

By 2020, I was disillusioned and didn’t vote – I didn’t like either option.

Now, in 2024, I believe this is one of the most important elections of my lifetime, and I’m supporting Trump.

I know that I’ll lose friends for this. Some will refuse to do business with me. The media will probably demonize me, as they have so many others before me. But despite this, I still believe it’s the right thing to do.

I refuse to live in a society where people are afraid to speak.

The 2016 Election

I’m going to start off with something provocative, but I think it leads to a different take on the most controversial Trump issue, which is obviously January 6th. So here goes nothing.

I believe the 2016 election was manipulated to hurt Hilary Clinton and to help Donald Trump.

Hillary Clinton herself believes this; she has denied the 2016 election result dozens of times and still does to this day. Plot twist: I agree with her! Look into Guccifer 2.0, which was the “hacker group” that strategically leaked her emails (through Wikileaks) in a drip campaign at just the right moments. Turns out it was the Russian GRU. And remember all those fake news and bot farms? These incidents are the tip of the spear — some of the publicly known incidents. There was extreme manipulation happening during the 2016 election.

Before proceeding, please watch at least 30 seconds of this video. It’s “24 straight minutes of Democrats denying election results.”

Russia (and others) interfering in the 2016 election was nothing new; this happens in every election, everywhere in the world. Obviously.

But for me, as someone that used to work in National Security, Russia’s implicit support for Trump made me deathly afraid of him getting elected as President.

I was wrong, and Russia miscalculated. President Trump turned out to be a master of foreign policy and particularly strong towards Russia. If you’ve never seen it before, please watch this two-minute clip from Trump at a NATO breakfast 5 years ago.

If you’re too lazy, Trump told Germany that they’re a) owned by Russia via their energy dependence, b) financing Russia’s war machine by buying their energy, c) not investing enough in defense, investing only 1% of GDP, which was below the 2% NATO commitment, meanwhile the US was investing 4.2% of GDP. And yet the world said he’s owned by Russia?
For other Trump foreign policy wins, he: a) signed the Abraham Accords, b) successfully put Iran in the penalty box, which the Biden administration immediately unwound, and c) he helped India see the dangers of having their comms networks controlled by China, resulting in Huawei and TikTok bans there.

My “radicalization” towards the center

August 16th, 2021 was the day I knew I could never support Joe Biden or any of the senior officials in his administration. This was the day that Afghans fell to their deaths from US C-17 airplanes at the Kabul International Airport, or KAIA as ISAF forces referred to it.

Back in 2012, I deployed to Afghanistan, working for DARPA. I used to fly out of KAIA at least weekly, usually taking a Blackhawk to Bagram Airfield (BAF), but sometimes jumping on a C-130 down to Kandahar (KAF).

I’m not going to go into all of the details here, but this was personal for me — as it was for anyone that served in Afghanistan. Most have the wrong impression of what happened there. Afghanistan wasn’t Iraq. And real progress had been made. It took roughly 15 years to stabilize most of Afghanistan, but the ISAF coalition had gotten it to the place that little girls were going to school in Kabul, sometimes walked there by their mothers who weren’t even wearing Burkas anymore. All of this was unimaginable a decade prior.

And then there’s the strategic aspect. The US’s most strategic base in Afghanistan was Bagram Airfield. Unless you’ve been there it’s impossible to imagine how strategic this base is, and how easy it is to defend. Nestled in a remote valley at the foothills of the Himalayas. Within a couple hour flight of China and Iran, and a few minute flight to Pakistan. I believe this airfield could have been held for 50+ years with 50,000 men. A similar scale to the US permanent forces stationed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany or the US bases in Okinawa, Japan.

We gave up one of the most strategic air bases in the world, and arguably stability in Kabul, for political gain — to be able to say that President Biden ended the War in Afghanistan. And we did it in the most incompetent manner possible, literally with people falling from our airplanes. Everyone I have spoken with that served in Afghanistan knows this.

Global instability

It wasn’t just Afghanistan, I believe that the Biden administration has had some of the worst foreign policy in decades. And this has manifested in two major Wars breaking out during their administration, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Iran’s proxy attack against Israel.

Was the timing just bad luck? I don’t believe so. I believe that a weak America leads to a chaotic world.

The failed Afghanistan pull-out showed the weakness of the Biden administration. They failed to adapt to changing facts on the ground, chiefly the Afghan army putting up no resistance as the Taliban drove towards Kabul. If the US can’t adapt quickly in a theater where we’re already active, how can it react quickly to a blitz in a new theater, Ukraine?

Granted the Russian’s botched their blitz, miscalculating the weather, almost certainly to keep China happy as they hosted the Olympics in Feb 2022.

The most damaging foreign policy has been the Biden administration’s approach to Iran. Biden resuscitated Obama’s braindead Iran doctrine. Somehow believing that the theocratic Islamic Regime could be turned towards the West.

But it’s much worse than this. After Hamas’ attack against Israel on October 7th, Iran took credit for planning the attack publicly. Moreover, Iran was so bold that their proxies carried out over 300 attacks against US bases and Naval ships. Many of the attacks haven’t been disclosed or publicized. At least 4 US soldiers have been killed in these attacks. And yet, somehow, despite this, the Biden administration has been rewarding Iran by unfreezing their funds, mourning the death of President Raisi, and hamstringing Israel in its proxy battle.

This level of weakness is unprecedented in my opinion. The US has been kissing the ring of its attacker, literally while attacks against our Armed Forces are carried out. If you start looking, it’s hard to see anything other than Iranian foreign influence in the Biden administration, such as what Semafor reported on, and which was effectively buried by our mainstream media.

The Biden administration has been a dream come true for foreign adversaries, and a nightmare for US allies. Trusting of enemies, and fickle with friends.

Israel

To anyone that follows me on X, you know that I’m a staunch Israel supporter and also Zionist. I believe that Israel is one of America’s most important allies in the world. Unfortunately, in a post-Snowden world, Israel is now arguably the world’s top cyber power. And it’s a critical intelligence ally for any US operations in the Middle East. It’s also becoming an advanced weapons partner, co-developing the hypersonic missile defense system Arrow 3 and also Iron Dome + Iron Beam.

The Islamic Regime in Iran terrorizes its own people and their proxies terrorize the entire region. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has been modernizing at an exceptional pace. Somehow the Biden administration has chosen to cuddle up to Iran while driving Saudi Arabia and Israel away. This is unforgivably disastrous policy in my opinion.

Double standards

The next topic that has boiled my blood are the double standards and lawfare that Trump has faced. Here are some examples:

Classified documents: Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mike Pence and Donald Trump were all caught with classified documents. Only Trump was indicted. Either it’s a crime for all of them or none of them. All of the arguments about quantity of documents or obstruction are distractions to justify a double standard.

The Border Wall: remember how Trump was villainized for promoting a border wall? Biden resumed building sections of it after pausing them, which the legacy media has been very quiet about.

Election denialism: yes, Trump denied the 2020 election results. But as we linked to above, so did Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden regarding the 2016 results. As have hundreds of other politicians since 2000. Either they’re all election deniers, or none of them.

Corruption charges: every inch has been searched for Trump corruption while Joe Biden’s involvement with foreign countries (through Hunter) have been swept under the rug.

Here are some examples.

Three strikes for thee but not for me: Joe Biden was the architect of the 1994 Crime Bill, which most attribute as the source of the mass incarceration we saw over the next two decades (especially amongst black communities). Crack cocaine, in particular, was treated harshly when combined with the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Watch this video. Hunter Biden would be locked up for life if the same rules were applied to him that Joe Biden imposed on thousands of others.
This is just the tip of the double-standard iceberg.

Lawfare

This is too broad of a topic to go into detail here, but suffice to say I’ve spent hundreds of hours following the trials and researching the charges against Trump. This has been another radicalizing experience. I understand that normally when there’s smoke, there’s fire, but in this case, I think when there’s smoke, there’s lawfare.

To anyone with a curious mind, I implore you to go deep on any of the charges against Trump, whether civil or criminal. Here’s a very quick summary of some of the fishy aspects:

Election Interference Case: Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel to prosecute Trump. Jack Smith previously got the Governor of Virginia convicted of corruption charges… WHICH WERE THEN UNANIMOUSLY OVERTURNED BY THE SUPREME COURT. Basically Jack Smith misled the Jury. Why would you choose Jack Smith to be the Special Counsel for this case? Maybe if all you’re trying to do is to get charges to stick before an election, even if you know they’ll be overturned subsequently by the Supreme Court?

The Classified Documents Case: once again Jack Smith is the Special Counsel.

Georgia Election Interference: The Fulton County DA, Fani Willis, has a history of corruption. It turns out that the outside lawyer she selected to prosecute Trump … is someone she was having a romantic relationship with, Nathan Wade. Wade’s Law firm made about $700k after Willis appointed him. This was concealed. Wade has since resigned from the case but Willis is still involved.

The Hush Money Case: The key witness, Michael Cohen, is a proven liar. His testimony has been filled with contradiction after contradiction.

Bank Fraud: Trump was ordered by Judge Engoron to pay over $350M in civil judgment that he committed bank fraud. This whole case reeked of corruption. This was an incident where no harm had been done: the banks had already been fully repaid with interest. The most important point in the case was Judge Engoron arguing that Mar-a-Lago was worth only between $18M and $27.6M when Trump had said it’s worth between $426.5M and $612M. Judge Engoron tried to compare apples to oranges, with an appraised value vs market value for a property that is very clearly worth something close to Trump’s range.

Sexual Assault / E Jean Carroll: the background to this case was almost unbelievable. In simple terms, a woman in 2019, E Jean Carroll, came out and said that 20+ years prior, in the late 1990s, Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her. The statute of limitations on this case had expired more than a decade prior to her claims. But the state of New York did something unprecedented and opened a one year window where people could file claims for sexual abuse going back to exactly the window when E Jean Carroll accused him. So that’s point #1, there was lawfare around the statute of limitations. Point #2 is that the case was highly irregular and ultimately the Jury determined that Trump did not rape E Jean Carroll, despite her claims. But they did determine that he sexually assaulted her (a lesser charge than rape.)
All of these cases are too complicated for most to follow, almost by design. As someone that has been following the cases closely, I’ve had the opposite reaction of what was intended: a) every single case seems to have had impropriety, and b) after going through Trump’s entire life, if these are the worst things they can find, then he did less wrong then I otherwise would have assumed.

Fairness is one of my guiding principles in life and simply, these cases haven’t been fair for Trump.

Where do I disagree with Republicans?

The number one area is abortion. This is obviously a lightning rod issue. As someone with libertarian leaning views, I believe the Republicans have the wrong stance around imposing their views on others. That said, I think Democrats misunderstand the constitutional argument that this should be a states issue.

Domestic policies
Other than abortion, I believe that President Trump and the Republicans have been better on most domestic issues. Look at the quality of life in Red States, such as Florida and Texas, vs. that in Blue States, like California, Oregon, and New York. I used to live in San Francisco and now live in Los Angeles. The crime and homelessness is out of control.
Trump was villainized for his stance on building a border wall, but we’ve had about 10M illegal immigrants cross into the US already during President Biden’s tenure.

The Democrats have been trying to regulate technology — especially open source AI and crypto in ways that incentivize the best builders to build outside of America.

25 years ago I believe the Far Right was vastly more dangerous than the Far Left. But today I believe the Far Left, and especially Antifa, is more dangerous. Our attention and maintenance was on the Far Right while we ignored the Far Left.

The 2020 election and January 6th

Now, onto the elephant in the room: the 2020 election. The topic is so taboo that if you talk about it, you’re immediately cancelled. I’m willing to wade into this fire — some of us need to be willing to.

I believe America has conflated two issues: the 2020 election itself and January 6th.

Just as Hilary Clinton and dozens of other democrats claimed the 2016 election was stolen (which I agree with). I believe there was a similar scale, or even more interference in the 2020 election. We need to be able to talk about this, so that we can fix the problems. Democracy doesn’t work without secure elections. But it also doesn’t work without peaceful transitions of power. Both are essential.

I believe there was extreme election interference, but I don’t believe January 6th was the right response. Bear with me.
So what was going on during the 2020 election?

I held a Top Secret (TS/SCI) clearance for about 7 years and used to work in information warfare, and also cybersecurity. I’ve seen nation-state tactics that most can’t imagine. It is from this lens, and through access to lots of non-public information, through which I viewed the election.

If you go back to the 2020 election, arguably the most sophisticated cyberattack in history was taking place. This was the SolarWinds supply chain attack. This attack was so sophisticated that it’s impossible to know exactly what it was used for. And much of what we do know has never been reported.

Washington has an interesting phenomenon where when something incredibly damaging is learned, people oftentimes clam up and refuse to deal with it. I’ve seen this firsthand multiple times now.

But we also have things like the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, which the FBI was in possession of for roughly a year before the election, and despite it being easy to verify its authenticity, the FBI was actively telling Facebook and Twitter that it is fake news and they recommended banning sharing of the NY Post article about it.

But there were so many other issues. Not least of which was a global pandemic that almost certainly leaked from a Chinese lab, but we weren’t allowed to talk about that. Nor the mail-in ballot issues.

Many point to the 2020 election and say “there’s no smoking gun evidence so therefore, there was no interference!” My retort is that there’s not public evidence and in general the DoD/IC is afraid to push too far on the issue, knowing how damaging it would be to find interference. There’s things I can’t say.

The end result is a 2020 election where Biden and Trump combined received 155.5M votes vs the 128.8M combined for Hilary and Trump in 2016. That’s 26.7M more votes in 2020 compared to 2016. That’s a 20% increase in voter turnout in a period where the population only grew by a few percent. In an election where people weren’t inspired by either candidate. And where there was more voting friction than ever before due to COVID-19.

Personally, I don’t think it’s fair for Hilary Clinton to be able to claim the 2016 election was stolen, but Donald Trump to be indicted for the same thing.

Regarding the January 6th protests. I don’t agree with them. Even if an election is stolen, I think the correct democratic response is to accept it, have peaceful transition of power, and then to fight like hell on the backend to make sure it never happens again.

Regarding Trump’s involvement in January 6th. The clearest thing he did was deny the election results, but again, so did Hilary Clinton. So if this isn’t a crime in and of itself, then what else did he do?

The rest is fuzzy. There is conflicting testimony, especially around when the National Guard was requested. On the one hand you had the testimonies of General Charles Flynn and Lt. General Walter Piatt. But on the other side you have the testimonies of Colonel Earl Mathews, Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and The Head of the Capitol Police at the time, Steven Sund. The media reports on Trump’s January 6th involvement in absolute terms but again, if you go deep, it’s unclear. For me, if Trump actually asked for the National Guard to be ready to go during January 6th it’s a major counterpoint against the allegations that he was inciting an insurrection.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/05/sequoia-capitol-partner-former-hillary-2016-donor-shaun/

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