Legal experts: Trump's unhinged attack on judge in court shows he "realizes he's going to lose"
Legal experts: Trump's unhinged attack on judge in court shows he "realizes he's going to lose"
He’s already lost, this trial is only to determine how much it will cost him. I think it’s more that he’s realized how bad his attorneys are, and that he’s going to lose everything.
And to think, all he had to do was not run for president of the United States (among many other things) and this probably never would have happened to him.
I mean, I’ve never run for president of the United States, it’s a very easy thing to not do.
He also could have, you know, not crimed.
Seriously. Had he not ran, or dropped out early, he could have probably started his own fringe news channel and lived a relatively unchanged, trouble free life and probably made some money doing it.
I personally think he expected to lose and wasn’t expecting the Russians to barely tip the scales to eek out an electoral college victory.
But he wants to look cool in front of his friends.
I can imagine a world where Trumps publicity presidential run starts spinning out and Jared/Ivanka start pulling strings to make it happen. Jared walked away with untold billions and just walks away unscathed. It's disgusting, especially when you think of how the GOP will stop at nothing to bury Hunter.
Respectfully, I hope you are wrong.
If not running was all it took not to be prosecuted then, to me, that says this is indeed a political prosecution and not about the rule of law.
he’s realized how bad his attorneys are
Maybe he should have paid or listened to the first dozen sets of lawyers he went through.
He’s almost certainly going to appeal whatever verdict he gets, claiming that he had ineffective legal council and that the judge was biased against him. Because the only effective reason you can appeal is if you don’t believe your trial was fair. So he’s basically stacking the “this trial was unfair” deck in his favor.
I hate to be that guy, but you can't appeal on ineffective assistance of counsel in a civil proceeding.
“My trial was unfair!”
“On what grounds?”
“I made it unfair for myself!”
💀
This oversight was first reported over two weeks ago, yet he hasn’t mentioned it or taken action in any way. Wonder if that would have an effect on such an appeal.
Even if he did appeal, would that delay execution of the resulting court order?
he’s going to lose everything.
He's going to send out a new round of "save our country" money-raising emails and every one of his cult members are basically going to bail his ass out of this again.
Just to clarify, that makes it sound like it is political. It is not although I don't think you meant to imply it was.
Running for president just put him under the microscope like it should. Lots of illegal stuff came out.
I will never get tired of all this losing.
I would be happy with just one loss that actually sticks.
I feel like all I read is, "Trump is really in trouble this time!" - but all I actually hear is Waylon Jennings saying, "Boy that Donald sure is in a heap ah trouble."
He really is the best at losing, no one loses like he does, they say they do but they don't he is the best loser.
Big strong men, with tears in their eyes, come up to him to say how great he is at losing!
Trump knows he can't win in a court of law, so he wants to win in the court of public opinion, where a con-man like him actually has some leverage over the gullible.
Even if he loses, he will suffer no significant consequences, nor will the lawless movement that supports him.
He could lose all of these cases tomorrow, and it still wouldn't mean a thing. He could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and there still would be no significant consequences.
The GOP are a lawless terrorist movement, but everyone else wants to "take the high road."
Convicted Sex Offender Treason Trump has already suffered huge consequences of losing his business license in NY and having his business go into receivership. In addition to the expected $250 million fine.
True. This is literally the corporate death penalty. His corporate assets may have to be sold to pay the debts. They will not get much, as the brand name will have to be changed. It's the worst thing that could happen to a business owner.
He will not be poor, but may end up with his name on worse buildings. Houston TX vs. Manhattan. And you know he doesn't want to leave NYC.
That still remains to be seen.
He's losing in a big way with these NY cases. There's a strong chance that he'll never be able to do business in NY again, which means a lot of work restructuring his businesses. It's a pretty big hit and will take a lot of time and money to resolve.
The election cases will be held next year, and will determine whether or not he sees jail time. I still have high hopes that we'll see him behind bars in the next couple of years. These cases just take time because of the ramifications if the DOJ gets them wrong.
If the Democrats/Progressives take the low road to beat the Republicans at their own game, isn't that just one team winning over another team? Whereas if you’re fighting for ideals then you’re going to end up taking the high road a lot
The ideal I'm fighting for is not being labelled a child sex offender and executed by the government because of my rainbow lapel pin. I'm open to higher ideals but when one side says we need to be "eliminated" I'm probably gonna tolerate a lot from the people who are trying to stop them.
"Take the high road" in this case means "treat treasonous criminals with kid gloves because they're supported by the GOP." If everything had been done by the book, Trump would have been in prison a long time ago.
The terrorists on the right need to be met - unfailingly - with unwavering resistance. And when they get violent, we have to stop them. That doesn't mean making a press release saying "we condemn in the strongest possible terms blah blah..." That means rounding up the violent actors and locking them away from civilized society.
Conservatives used to say that "tough on crime" should mean "tough on criminals." Well when the GOP are criminals, the law needs to get touch on them.
Currently they aren't scared of anything, because most of the other violent people sympathize with them. If they are going to wreck our Capitol and dismantle our freedoms, it's time for another Sherman's March, and finish the work that we started in Reconstruction.
They speak openly of killing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And anyone else they don't like. They need to be scared of doing that, and we have to beat them to a pulp in order to make that happen - because that's the only language that thugs understand.
Let’s everyone take a moment and collectively laugh at the sad little coward that’s downvoting all the comments for making fun of their beloved hero.
No rebuttals. No arguments in defense- just butt-hurt worthless downvotes.
Imagine how sad it would be to have a sex offender as your hero.
Excellent.
Look, you are allowed as a defendant in a criminal case or a civil case," he continued. "You're allowed to criticize the prosecutor, you're allowed to criticize the other party. You're allowed to criticize the judge."
Are you allowed to criticize the judge like this, though? My understanding is that judges can nail people for contempt for far less. I know Trump is trying to score a political point here and a contempt of court ruling would play into that... but I wish one of these judges would go "idgaf" and bring down the hammer.
I mean, you're "allowed" to do many things if you don't care about the consequences. Trump right now can criticize the judge as much as he wants - so long as he's willing to suffer contempt of court rulings.
You're right, though. Judges are being lenient on Trump with regard to his outside courtroom behavior due to his being a political figure. If you or I did what he has been doing, we'd be found in contempt of court ASAP.
We'd be held in contempt so bigly, it'd make our heads spin.
When he says "criticize" he's employing the time tested GOP tactic of genericizing his way out of criminality. You start by saying something obviously inflammatory and criminal, then you characterize your actions as more and more generic until you end up with something harmless sounding. That's how you start by threatening witnesses and calling for violence against a judge then end up on TV talking about how you're being imprisoned for "having an opinion".
John Yoo?
"I think that Trump has already decided he's going to lose on the law," John Yoo, a Berkeley Law professor and former Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration, told Fox News on Monday. "Last week, the judge already made all the key findings against him. So what I think President Trump has done is turn this all into a political strategy."
Yeah... THAT John Yoo:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_Memos
"a March 13, 2003, legal opinion written by John Yoo of the Office of Legal Counsel, DoJ, and issued to the General Counsel of Defense five days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq started, concluding that federal laws related to use of torture and other abuse did not apply to agents interrogating foreigners overseas;[3] and other DoD internal memos authorizing techniques for specific military interrogations of certain individual detainees."
and:
"You have asked for this advice in the course of conducting interrogations of Abu Zubaydah."[6] The memo's author, John Yoo, acknowledged the memo authorized the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by the CIA in Zubaydah's interrogation.[7] Yoo told an interviewer in 2007, "there was an urgency to decide so that valuable intelligence could be acquired from Abu Zubaydah, before further attacks could occur."[7]
John Yoo, a Berkeley Law professor and former Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration
It's insane that a guy like this who tried to get government torture legalized in the United States has now had a long, well-paying, distinguished career and is being referred to as "a Berkeley Law professor and former Justice Department official" instead of "torture guy."
I guess having zero morals and ethics really does pay off.
It's ridiculous how much John Yoo's name comes up in media interviews. It's as infuriating as seeing Newt Gingrich or Grover Norquist's name crop up in every other article in the Washington Post, who scrambles to get their opinions on all things political. It's all one big circle-jerk of mainstream media, greedy politicians, and billionaires.
Him and Alberto "I can't recall" Gonzales.
https://www.democracynow.org/2007/4/20/gonzales_grilled_by_gops_and_dems
Your last sentence is 100% correct.
Still not okay.
Why the F does he have a job at Berkeley? Why isn't he unemployed?
I really just wanna see the judge eviscerate this “no victims” defense BS. We do NOT wait for someone to be hurt to enforce the law. Can you imagine how many speeding tickets would be pled out of if this was a legitimate defense?
Even if you scope it down to the case at hand, we’d keep letting people commit financial fraud until the bank is finally harmed. And guess what happens when banks get fucked? The govt uses the common people’s tax dollars to bail them out.
If victimless crimes don't count then why do I have to hide my weed?
You can argue the same about blasphemy. Either there is a god and it is so far beyond us nothing we could ever do could hurt it or there isn't one in which case what doesn't exist can't be hurt.
The 'no victims' defence is right out of the Sovereign Citizen playbook and is often used in a futile attempt to get out of driving related charges and violations. I've seen videos of such world salad bombardments when the cops pull them over; it usually ends in a smashed window and handcuffs.
Everyone who uses the banking system was a victim. The money that Convicted Sex Offender Treason Trump defrauded the banks out of was paid for by other bank consumers.
Not really. It's a federal crime to lie on a bank document because they are federally chartered. Each document (or lie or something) can be punished with 2 years in jail.
If you say "I have this much money" on a bank document and sign it, you can go to jail for 2 years. It's not punished often, usually when a bank employee steals something.
And the "no victims" defense is garbage anyway. He still committed fraud.
Suppose I steal $100 from you. I take that $100 and use it to bet on horse racing. My bets pay off and I win $1,000. Now, I return your $100. Can I be arrested for theft? After all, you got your money back so you (by Trump's "logic") aren't a victim. So I should be allowed to walk free with my $900 profit, right?
Of course not. I still committed theft. Returning the money later doesn't absolve me of my crime. Maybe, I'd get a lighter sentence for returning the money, but that's up to the judge.
So maybe Trump gets off slightly easier because the banks got their money back, but he still got loans based on fraudulent information and profited off of his fraud. No amount of loan repayment absolves him of the fraud that got him those loans.
"It seems to me Donald Trump's strategy here is essentially damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,"
That has ALWAYS been Trump's strategy for everything.
And it has worked spectacularly well. Hoping someone will have the guts to finally impose consequences on him.
The only part of that I disagree with is the part that implies that is the only problem with him. Otherwise, yes.
I have a cousin that disappeared off Facebook that was a huge Trump fan (he literally commented "Don't worry, we still love you, President Trump" after the election loss). It's possible he unfriended me, which means I wouldn't see his profile or anything, but the timing is odd - you'd think he would have done that when we were arguing about, say, Covid in 2020. It makes me wonder where he was on January 6 and where he is now.
Looks like the only path of the man is to become a dictator. Can't see any other ways for him to avoid being held to account at this point.
He's known this for a while now. Its why he's been pushing for delays to his trials, so he can just get another chance at being elected and then never leaving power again.
and pardon himself
Watch the video of him on election night 2016. While everyone else is celebrating that they actually pulled off a really impressive underdog win, Trump himself looks rather morose. He looks like a guy who just realized that he's moved out of the realm of "screed-oriented media grifter surrounded by sycophants" into an arena where lying has consequences, criminality can't easily be dismissed and for the first time in his life his opponents will be just as if not more powerful than him. I think that day was the day he realized he's either gonna be king for life or he's going to prison.
He didn't want to win. He wanted to lose, and then he could launch TrumpTV to take on Fox News. That was his plan.
His wife knew exactly what was going to happen. She had tears of rage rolling down her plastic face the day he was sworn in.
Already starting the next grift
The dude is just gifts all the way down.
Grifts*
How else do you expect a "billionaire" to pay for all those legal bills? Obviously, it's up to people with very little money to support "billionaires" who don't want to stop criming.
The gift that just keeps on grifting?
He's just a thousand grifts in an orange skin suit.
Not that I disagree, but how the hell is a "legal expert" any prerequisite for judging what a person's behavior says about them? That's more of psychologist's job, being a legal expert means as much as "the builder of the best sandcastle in the universe" in this case.
Not that it's very relevant to Trump, the only qualification required to analyze him is "being at least 5 year old of average intelligence". I just hate shitty titles, is all.
I love reading good news! like seeing the annoying orange finally tasting karma. I am making fresh popcorn
Let's hope he'll finally gets a jumpsuit color-matching his orange hair and tan.
What are the chances of jail time? White collar crime like this effects way more people than petty theft, but I'm thinking at most it'll be a hefty fine. Again, like on most topics, I'm pretty ignorant of the reality of the situation.
It's a civil case, which means no jail time should he be convicted. It will just be a fine.
That said, it's possible the verbal attacks against those involved lead to...something. I wouldn't hold your breath though.
It is also possible to plead the fifth as a defendant in a civil trial, however, a jury (or the judge, in this case) can make "adverse inferences" from that in civil court.
In a criminal case, a defendant who takes the stand has waived their fifth amendment rights. That's why you don't hear defendants on the stand in court saying "Fifth, fifth, fifth." A defendant retains their fifth amendment rights in a criminal trial by refusing to take the stand - as is their right.
What I'm not sure of is whether that also applies in a civil case. Unlike in a criminal trial, in civil court, the plaintiff can call the defendant to the stand. I don't know if that obliges the defendant to take the stand or not. Also, in civil court, a defendant can only plead the fifth if answering the question could implicate them in criminal matters. The civil matter at hand, all by itself, cannot be "fifthed out of;" if a defendant is on the stand, they must answer questions in relation to the case, again, so long as the answers could not implicate them in crimes.
We know that Trump is on the plaintiff's witness list. If plaintiff calls Trump to the stand in his civil case, is he obliged to go on the stand? I think he is, because fifth amendment protections do not extend to civil litigation. Then he could plead the fifth if the answer to the specific question posed implicates him in a crime. If that happens, there would surely be a motion from plaintiff's attorneys for the court to rule on whether fifth amendment protections extend to that question.
But this is a bench trial, where the judge is going to decide the outcome of the case. It would be completely reasonable for the defense to want a different judge to make that fifth amendment call; having the current bench learn about the potential answers to the question of fifth amendment protection would obviously tend to influence the very same bench who is responsible for deciding the case.
I have no idea what's going to come of all this.
I would always prefer holding other people’s breath over my own.
Unfortunately, this case, in a legal sense, is against his corporation, not him.
It's ruling will likely result in the dissolution of said corporation and the barring of Trump doing business in NYC, just like a similar case did with his charities, from which he stole.
That's the annoying thing with how corporations are handled in the US.
What Trump did in the charity and this case is criminal fraud. But because it was all nicely wrapped in the form of some corporate entity, it's a civil case. That shit is fucked up.
He may also lose properties, to be sold to pay for the fines.
It's a civil trial. The court won't forcibly take anything from him.
I was defrauded by someone who lied on a house condition report, and the house needed $20k in work to not be condemned. I had paperwork the previous owner left in a closet that showed they were aware of the extent of the damage years before selling the house, but it was not disclosed.
Our attorney said "you can win this case. But you'll win a $20k judgement. If they don't pay, you have to sue again for failure to pay. If they die (they were elderly) legally the estate has to post in the local paper a notice. If you catch that notice within a couple of weeks, you will be able to claim $20k from the estate. If you miss this window, you're SOL."
Traitor orange is going down!
"Just because I'm guilty of all these crimes, it feels like this person wants to prosecute me for them - it's not fair!"
Citation: Narcissism
No no no no, I think his strategy of directly antagonizing law enforcement is going to work and he should be encouraged to do so.. /s
Why get legal experts to weight in on this? That assumes he is listening to his counsel which we all know he is not. Need a phycologist to weight in on this instead to make any sense of it. I don't think his delusional narcissistic ass has the capacity to realize he is going to lose, but I'm not a legal expert or psychologist.
Frontotemporal dementia
He's having a complete meltdown right now.
This is the best popcorn I've ever had.
Don't eat it all too quickly. I have a feeling this is going to get better and better.
Between this and his lawyers "forgetting" to request a jury trial, this is gonna suck for him.
🍿🍿🍿🍿🍺🍺🍺🍺
Grab one and enjoy the show!
🍻
"I have the worst lawyers..."
I still haven't figured out how he has anyone willing to represent him. It appears that he doesn't pay any of his bills. Like ever.
Trump's PAC is paying his legal fees, not Trump himself. So far the Save America PAC seems to have spent at least 10 million on legal fees for the former president.
the way they're talking him up, I have to wonder if they're MAGA cultists doing it pro... er, con bono
I can't imagine any lawyer wouldn't need an up front deposit before dealing with him. Then again, have you seen some of his lawyers?
Not only that, but he lies to his lawyers and refuses to listen to him. Combine those and most lawyers wouldn't touch him with a twenty foot pole.
He's left with bottom of the barrel barely-lawyers who are looking to make a name for themselves and True Believer lawyers who are willing to crime all the crimes alongside Trump because MAGA. Neither of these provide good legal representation.
LegalEagle just did a video ranking Trump’s lawyers. Devin put over half of them in F tier.
I guess one can get tired of winning!