2020 Elections - Trump FIRED

[MDlaxfan76]

DC Attorney General investigates whether he can charge Trump with inciting violence for urging MAGA mob to march towards Capitol prior to siege

He is weighing whether he can bring charges against Trump and others, including his son Don Jr. and lawyer Rudy Giuliani
He noted that the Justice Department has already said they can't bring charges against a president
Racine is looking at whether that still applies once Trump is out of office
Racine described the comments made by Trump, his son and Giuliani during the rally that directly preceded the Capitol riot as 'outrageous'

Trial by combat!!

On this one, I'd like to see Rudy behind bars. But I think Trump will pardon him...don't know if there's a non-federal charge but if there is that path I'd be rooting for it to stick. I agree about the message necessary to send.

[ggait]

However, my issue isn't with 'losing' due to jury nullification, it's that the incitement to violence is a necessarily high bar. Maybe it shouldn't be so high, that's arguable, but if I'm not mistaken there's a fair amount of legal precedence that may make it difficult for the courts to go there.

12 guilty votes beyond a reasonable doubt for criminal incitement is an EXTREMELY high bar for any case (not just Trump's case). If Mr. Brandenburg of the KKK can beat his incitement rap in Ohio, Trump can likely beat it to.

But as to impeachment, it is a forking slam dunk. As Chris Christie put it yesterday, if Trump's conduct isn't impeachable then nothing is. Abuse of power, breach of trust, violation of oath of office.

[old salt]

If accurate, more inexplicable decisions by the Capitol Police.

https://www.businessinsider.com/capitol ... rch-2021-1

A Capitol Police officer who works the night shift said he and others expected to work on the day of the attack but were sent home

A Capitol Police officer told Insider that he and others expected to pull an extra shift last Wednesday but were sent home instead.

The understaffed force was overwhelmed when a pro-Trump mob broke into the Capitol. Authorities did not retake control for hours.

The officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, blamed top brass for leaving the force understaffed and unprepared to deal with the mob.
"Lack of manpower caused the entire freaking disaster," he said. "We just didn't have the numbers."
The Capitol Police did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

A US Capitol Police officer blamed department leadership for leaving the force understaffed last week for the pro-Trump protest that resulted in rioters storming the Capitol building and wreaking havoc.

The officer asked to remain anonymous, citing department policy not to talk to the media without permission.

He said he was working the night shift last week and found it "puzzling" that he and his colleagues were sent home earlier than expected on Wednesday. He also said nobody asked him to come back after the attack.

The officer said everybody in the department knew in advance about the pro-Trump march and thought it would be an all-hands-on-deck situation.

The officer packed a backpack full of protein bars and coffee, expecting to work into the afternoon after his regular shift ended at 7 a.m.

But instead, he said, top brass sent his shift home at 10 a.m.

"Naively, I thought, well, they must know something that we don't. Maybe they have intel showing they're not going to come up on the Hill," or "they don't think they're that violent," he said.

"I trusted that they knew what they were doing by letting us go home," he said.

"Then, of course, I woke up in the afternoon to my wife telling me they breached the Capitol," the officer said.

The officer said he checked his phone, expecting to find a bunch of missed calls asking him to come into work, but was shocked to find none at all.

"They didn't even try to recall us," he said.

The officer said he thought it was especially odd that his bosses would turn down extra officers given that many of his colleagues were out sick because of the coronavirus.

"Lack of manpower caused the entire freaking disaster," he said. "We just didn't have the numbers."

The officer was clear that he thought the people ultimately to blame for what happened were the rioters.

But he said senior officers shared part of that responsibility for the low staffing levels and for not having other agencies quickly on hand to help.

He said that he wasn't sure why help was declined but that a lot of agencies didn't like to accept outside help because "they're reluctant to admit they need it."

He said it was the "right call" for Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund to resign in the wake of the siege, as the situation could "absolutely" have been avoided.

"If we had every hand on deck and accepted outside help, I do believe we could have stopped them from getting in," the officer said.

Sund told The Washington Post on Sunday that he called for reinforcements six times on Wednesday but was blocked and ended up getting little help.

The Capitol Police have also been criticized over the smaller number of arrests made during the Capitol siege on Wednesday than in BLM protests and anti-Trump marches in Washington, DC.

The officer said he could see why more arrests weren't made in the moment, because every arrest occupies an officer who could otherwise help secure the area.

He gave a possible explanation for why more arrests were made at other protests. He said that some marches had "mass-arrest teams" but that he didn't think any were working on Wednesday.

He said these teams were built for situations in which a demonstration is peaceful and protesters are trying to get arrested "to make a point." He said he wasn't sure they would have been appropriate on Wednesday, when every officer was needed to defend the Capitol.

The officer said it wasn't clear to him why officers didn't make more arrests when the rioters started to retreat on Wednesday.

"It sort of baffled me for a second, but I'm sure the goal was to keep as many officers in the field as possible," he said.

The officer also addressed two videos that appeared to show some officers opening barricades and ushering people into the Capitol complex and one officer taking selfies with some Trump supporters.

Both videos led many to question whether the department or some of the officers were complicit in the breach.

The officer who spoke with Insider said that he worked with a lot of Trump supporters but that none were so fanatical as to risk their jobs in aiding an insurrection.

He also said he had "no idea" why some officers were caught on video opening gates and waving people through.

"Maybe there's a tactical reason for that," he said. "I don't know of any officer that would willingly just stand aside and let these guys through. If they did it, it's because they were either ordered to or forced to."

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/306 ... nald-trump

Good move by Bill.

[njbill]

However, my issue isn't with 'losing' due to jury nullification, it's that the incitement to violence is a necessarily high bar. Maybe it shouldn't be so high, that's arguable, but if I'm not mistaken there's a fair amount of legal precedence that may make it difficult for the courts to go there.

But my real issue has been that I'd like us to avoid "political" prosecutions from the DOJ if we can possibly help it. Very slippery slope.

Maybe this situation will have no other recourse, maybe this is SO egregious there's no other choice, but I am concerned about the unintended downstream consequences.

There is a tension between the first amendment and criminal activity, but that is true anytime you try to prove a crime with someone’s words. When the mafia boss says “take care of him,” the prosecutor may introduce evidence of surrounding circumstances, get testimony from mob members, etc. to prove the boss’ real meaning.

Obviously a lot more investigation will be needed here, but I would think the prosecutors will be able to find evidence from people who say T**** meant for the mob to enter the Capitol building and confront and force members of Congress to approve objections to the electoral college votes. Some or most of that activity necessarily implies force. There is no other way to enter the building but by force. There is no other way to get members of Congress to vote a certain way (under these circumstances) except by force.

But in any event, I don’t think you need to allege or prove violence to prove insurrection. While insurrection ordinarily contemplates some measure of violence, I don’t think it absolutely is essential. Or the amount of violence may be minimal.

Sure, the case is defensible. But I think any reasonable person knows what happened here was a serious criminal wrong, and that T**** was behind it.

Potentially very damaging evidence against him would be testimony from those at the White House who (reports are) saw him reacting gleefully to the violence on TV.

The media is accumulating a lot of other statements he has made in the past few months, many of which are relevant.

If a president who incites a crowd to enter the Capitol building to interrupt and overturn the process by which a validly elected president is approved by Congress shouldn’t be held criminally liable, then what citizen in this country should be criminally charged for anything?

I hear you, and agree in concept, about avoiding political prosecutions. Again, though, if inciting the overthrow of the government isn’t prosecutable, what is?

I’m not sure what downstream unintended consequences you are thinking about. I assume you mean harmful consequences that would outweigh the damage to the country of not prosecuting T****. We can never foresee everything that might happen in the future. We have to make decisions with the information we have at present.

Right now, the right thing to do is to prosecute T**** for attempting to overthrow the government. It may take some time for that to really sink in since it has never happened in this country’s history in exactly this way. Not even in the Civil War.

But that is, in fact, what happened. The sitting president, in an attempt to retain power, incited a mob to physically interfere with Congress’ formal approval of the election results. That’s sedition, pure and simple. That is what the history books will say 50, 100 years from now.

So, do you let the guy walk or do we prosecute him? I say we prosecute him. If a jury of his peers lets him walk, that will be a dark day indeed for the country, but that will be the judgment of our judicial system, and the country will survive.

[seacoaster]

An alternative:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... etter-way/

"House Democrats’ plans to rush through an impeachment of President Trump won’t work, for a simple reason: The Constitution envisions impeachment only as a tool for proceeding against a president while he remains in office. Impeachment is meant to protect the country, not punish the offender. But that needn’t be the end of efforts to prevent Trump from again holding federal office. There is another, little-known constitutional provision that can achieve precisely that without distorting the Constitution’s meaning.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, bars Trump from holding another federal office if he is found to have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the Constitution of the United States.

The finding could be accomplished by a simple majority vote of both houses, in contrast to the requirement in impeachment proceedings that the Senate vote to convict by a two-thirds majority. Congress would simply need to declare that Trump engaged in an act of “insurrection or rebellion” by encouraging the attack on the Capitol. Under the 14th Amendment, Trump could run for the White House again only if he were able to persuade a future Congress to, “by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

Section 3 was enacted to bar any “civil or military” officer who had served the United States before the Civil War from regaining a position of authority if he betrayed his country by supporting the Confederacy. During the height of Reconstruction, a number of former Confederates were, in fact, barred from holding office. It was only in 1872 that Congress once again allowed these men to serve the United States by passing an Amnesty Act with the requisite two-thirds majorities.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) seems to believe that the only way to disqualify Trump from running for a second term is to gain House support for a second impeachment while he is still in office, even though the Senate trial can’t begin until Jan. 20 or 21. Since impeachment is designed to remove officials from office, the constitutionality of such a trial is problematic. But even if it were legitimate, the trial would come with heavy costs to the country and to the incoming Biden administration.

First, the trial could well lead to Trump’s acquittal if most Republican senators decide that a vote to convict would damage their reelection chances by alienating their right-wing base. What message would that send? Second, having the Senate’s time consumed in holding a trial would delay President-elect Joe Biden’s efforts to secure confirmation of his Cabinet and other nominees and divert attention from other initiatives of the new administration. Third, it would further divide the country at precisely the time Biden is seeking to bring America together.

Of course, this being a litigious country, Trump could appeal to the courts to declare that Congress’s determination that he had engaged in an “insurrection or rebellion” was not justified by the facts. But this would be risky, since Trump would be required to testify under oath in response to detailed questioning by the government’s lawyers about his precise conduct during the attack.

Moreover, if the judiciary finally upheld the congressional determination, its judgment would undermine claims by the extreme right that Trump is a victim of a partisan vendetta.

Even more fundamentally, the law is the law. Not only is it in the political interest of the protagonists to heed the express instructions of the 14th Amendment; it is even more important to demonstrate to all Americans that their representatives in Washington take the Constitution seriously.

Now is the time to take a step back, call a halt to the House’s rush toward a last-minute impeachment — and deploy the constitutional means to the important end of making sure Trump is out of office for good."

[DMac]

IMO, it's an absolute must that "we prosecute him".
The behavior of this President can not go unpunished,
plain and simple. Short of a stick in his asz and turds
in his mouth while in a pillory on the White House lawn,
I don't know what the appropriate punishment should be.

[njbill]

Pillory on the Capitol grounds for 12 hours?

Dmac, you edited and beat me to it.

[seacoaster]

IMO, it's an absolute must that "we prosecute him".
The behavior of this President can not go unpunished,
plain and simple. Short of a stick in his asz and turds
in his mouth while in a pillory on the White House lawn,
I don't know what the appropriate punishment should be.

He should be impeached and convicted, and lose his pension, his secret service protection, and his ability to run for federal office again. Symmetry. He didn't keep faith with the American system of government or its people. We don't have to keep faith with him.

What NYS decides, not up to me.

[DMac]

Can you add my stuff to it too?

[old salt]

An alternative:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... etter-way/

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, bars Trump from holding another federal office if he is found to have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the Constitution of the United States.

The finding could be accomplished by a simple majority vote of both houses, in contrast to the requirement in impeachment proceedings that the Senate vote to convict by a two-thirds majority. Congress would simply need to declare that Trump engaged in an act of “insurrection or rebellion” by encouraging the attack on the Capitol. Under the 14th Amendment, Trump could run for the White House again only if he were able to persuade a future Congress to, “by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

That sounds great. Do it in the House now. I bet you could get 51 Senate votes on Jan 19, sending Trump to St Helena.

That should not preclude prosecution after out of office.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2021/ ... ons-457460

Poor Rudy

[MDlaxfan76]

However, my issue isn't with 'losing' due to jury nullification, it's that the incitement to violence is a necessarily high bar. Maybe it shouldn't be so high, that's arguable, but if I'm not mistaken there's a fair amount of legal precedence that may make it difficult for the courts to go there.

But my real issue has been that I'd like us to avoid "political" prosecutions from the DOJ if we can possibly help it. Very slippery slope.

Maybe this situation will have no other recourse, maybe this is SO egregious there's no other choice, but I am concerned about the unintended downstream consequences.

There is a tension between the first amendment and criminal activity, but that is true anytime you try to prove a crime with someone’s words. When the mafia boss says “take care of him,” the prosecutor may introduce evidence of surrounding circumstances, get testimony from mob members, etc. to prove the boss’ real meaning.

Obviously a lot more investigation will be needed here, but I would think the prosecutors will be able to find evidence from people who say T**** meant for the mob to enter the Capitol building and confront and force members of Congress to approve objections to the electoral college votes. Some or most of that activity necessarily implies force. There is no other way to enter the building but by force. There is no other way to get members of Congress to vote a certain way (under these circumstances) except by force.

But in any event, I don’t think you need to allege or prove violence to prove insurrection. While insurrection ordinarily contemplates some measure of violence, I don’t think it absolutely is essential. Or the amount of violence may be minimal.

Sure, the case is defensible. But I think any reasonable person knows what happened here was a serious criminal wrong, and that T**** was behind it.

Potentially very damaging evidence against him would be testimony from those at the White House who (reports are) saw him reacting gleefully to the violence on TV.

The media is accumulating a lot of other statements he has made in the past few months, many of which are relevant.

If a president who incites a crowd to enter the Capitol building to interrupt and overturn the process by which a validly elected president is approved by Congress shouldn’t be held criminally liable, then what citizen in this country should be criminally charged for anything?

I hear you, and agree in concept, about avoiding political prosecutions. Again, though, if inciting the overthrow of the government isn’t prosecutable, what is?

I’m not sure what downstream unintended consequences you are thinking about. I assume you mean harmful consequences that would outweigh the damage to the country of not prosecuting T****. We can never foresee everything that might happen in the future. We have to make decisions with the information we have at present.

Right now, the right thing to do is to prosecute T**** for attempting to overthrow the government. It may take some time for that to really sink in since it has never happened in this country’s history in exactly this way. Not even in the Civil War.

But that is, in fact, what happened. The sitting president, in an attempt to retain power, incited a mob to physically interfere with Congress’ formal approval of the election results. That’s sedition, pure and simple. That is what the history books will say 50, 100 years from now.

So, do you let the guy walk or do we prosecute him? I say we prosecute him. If a jury of his peers lets him walk, that will be a dark day indeed for the country, but that will be the judgment of our judicial system, and the country will survive.

I agree with your logic, but that's why you MUST impeach and convict.
But perhaps this is so egregious there just isn't a choice. I just don't want to normalize in any sense the notion that we prosecute our political foes in the US for that opposition...but, yes, this is much, much more.

[MDlaxfan76]

https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2021/ ... ons-457460

Poor Rudy

Small FU to POTUS too by Mnuchin?

[MDlaxfan76]

Can you add my stuff to it too?

[MDlaxfan76]

An alternative:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... etter-way/

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, bars Trump from holding another federal office if he is found to have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the Constitution of the United States.

The finding could be accomplished by a simple majority vote of both houses, in contrast to the requirement in impeachment proceedings that the Senate vote to convict by a two-thirds majority. Congress would simply need to declare that Trump engaged in an act of “insurrection or rebellion” by encouraging the attack on the Capitol. Under the 14th Amendment, Trump could run for the White House again only if he were able to persuade a future Congress to, “by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

That sounds great. Do it in the House now. I bet you could get 51 Senate votes on Jan 19, sending Trump to St Helena.

That should not preclude prosecution after out of office.

Does it have to be an 'alternative' or can this be a 'yes and' with impeachment process? Perhaps takes some of the urgency out of the Senate trial for impeachment, which would probably suit both sides of the aisle...do that trial process downstream after a heck of a lot more evidence has been developed and the magnitude of how close we came actually sinks in. Then do it with bipartisan support.

[seacoaster]

Can you add my stuff to it too?

Trump in the stocks. Sure, love that.

[old salt]

An alternative:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... etter-way/

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, bars Trump from holding another federal office if he is found to have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the Constitution of the United States.

The finding could be accomplished by a simple majority vote of both houses, in contrast to the requirement in impeachment proceedings that the Senate vote to convict by a two-thirds majority. Congress would simply need to declare that Trump engaged in an act of “insurrection or rebellion” by encouraging the attack on the Capitol. Under the 14th Amendment, Trump could run for the White House again only if he were able to persuade a future Congress to, “by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

That sounds great. Do it in the House now. I bet you could get 51 Senate votes on Jan 19, sending Trump to St Helena.

That should not preclude prosecution after out of office.

Does it have to be an 'alternative' or can this be a 'yes and' with impeachment process? Perhaps takes some of the urgency out of the Senate trial for impeachment, which would probably suit both sides of the aisle...do that trial process downstream after a heck of a lot more evidence has been developed and the magnitude of how close we came actually sinks in. Then do it with bipartisan support.

It would be the quickest, surest way to keep Trump from ever holding office again.
Then let Biden decide if & when he wants to go forward with impeachment & a Senate trial.

[MDlaxfan76]

An alternative:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... etter-way/

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, bars Trump from holding another federal office if he is found to have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the Constitution of the United States.

The finding could be accomplished by a simple majority vote of both houses, in contrast to the requirement in impeachment proceedings that the Senate vote to convict by a two-thirds majority. Congress would simply need to declare that Trump engaged in an act of “insurrection or rebellion” by encouraging the attack on the Capitol. Under the 14th Amendment, Trump could run for the White House again only if he were able to persuade a future Congress to, “by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

That sounds great. Do it in the House now. I bet you could get 51 Senate votes on Jan 19, sending Trump to St Helena.

That should not preclude prosecution after out of office.

Does it have to be an 'alternative' or can this be a 'yes and' with impeachment process? Perhaps takes some of the urgency out of the Senate trial for impeachment, which would probably suit both sides of the aisle...do that trial process downstream after a heck of a lot more evidence has been developed and the magnitude of how close we came actually sinks in. Then do it with bipartisan support.

It would be the quickest, surest way to keep Trump from ever holding office again.
Then let Biden decide if & when he wants to go forward with impeachment & a Senate trial.

Biden may have a preference about timing, but he should keep his hands off it as much as he can.

His current position is that impeachment and trial in Senate can be done at the same time as moving his Cabinet through and initial legislative priorities. These guys are geared up and ready to go.

But it might nevertheless be wise to delay the Senate portion some heartbeats while the FBI develops more and more evidence of what went down and who was involved and why. I'd like to see this be a strong bi-partisan process when it gets done, send a very, very strong message. McConnell's capable of delivering that now, but I'm not thinking he's 100% ready.

[old salt]

An alternative:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... etter-way/

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, bars Trump from holding another federal office if he is found to have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the Constitution of the United States.

The finding could be accomplished by a simple majority vote of both houses, in contrast to the requirement in impeachment proceedings that the Senate vote to convict by a two-thirds majority. Congress would simply need to declare that Trump engaged in an act of “insurrection or rebellion” by encouraging the attack on the Capitol. Under the 14th Amendment, Trump could run for the White House again only if he were able to persuade a future Congress to, “by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

That sounds great. Do it in the House now. I bet you could get 51 Senate votes on Jan 19, sending Trump to St Helena.

That should not preclude prosecution after out of office.

Does it have to be an 'alternative' or can this be a 'yes and' with impeachment process? Perhaps takes some of the urgency out of the Senate trial for impeachment, which would probably suit both sides of the aisle...do that trial process downstream after a heck of a lot more evidence has been developed and the magnitude of how close we came actually sinks in. Then do it with bipartisan support.

It would be the quickest, surest way to keep Trump from ever holding office again.
Then let Biden decide if & when he wants to go forward with impeachment & a Senate trial.

Biden may have a preference about timing, but he should keep his hands off it as much as he can.

His current position is that impeachment and trial in Senate can be done at the same time as moving his Cabinet through and initial legislative priorities. These guys are geared up and ready to go.

But it might nevertheless be wise to delay the Senate portion some heartbeats while the FBI develops more and more evidence of what went down and who was involved and why. I'd like to see this be a strong bi-partisan process when it gets done, send a very, very strong message. McConnell's capable of delivering that now, but I'm not thinking he's 100% ready.

Would you forgo the 14th Amendment solution outlined above in hopes of a subsequent Senate conviction later ?

The sooner Trump is prohibited from holding office again, the sooner he heads toward marginalization & less influence.