Trump

[Haibane]

Holy crap. Can this be true?

[Kitteredge]

Trump was attacking NATO back in the late '80s --

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ilanbenmeir/that-time-trump-spent-nearly-100000-on-an-ad-criticizing-us

Spending nearly $100,000 on ads in major papers. This was after one of his trips to Moscow in that era. He was saying essentially what he said in his presidency, that the alliance was useless and should break apart. This, of course, would benefit Russia greatly.

Most signs show Russian agents cultivating him into the '90s and then going in hard in the new century as he needed more and more money to keep up his sham business empire. Some believe his short-lived 2000 presidential run was a result of their ego-stroking and a trial-balloon. Fifteen years or so later, he was in very thick. No legitimate bank would lend him money other than Deutsche, laundering oligarch funds.

Make no mistake: Trump is far too stupid to realize they are taking advantage of him and likely considers them 'just friends,' but an asset does not need to be aware of what they are to be incredibly valuable. Trump is both incredibly dumb and incredibly vain, so flattery and attention gets you almost anything you want, so long as you appear big and tough. He wound up adoring North Korea, for example, far above any of our actual allies.

[Oniya]

Holy crap. Can this be true?

Trump has been running businesses into the ground for decades.  Financially, he's a bad risk.  His finances and loans through DeustcheBank (about the only bank that would lend him money, and which is currently under investigation for Russian money laundering) are more compromising than any rumored pee-pee tape.

[Oniya]

(Source on Deustche Bank investigation)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-deutschebank-investigation-russia-exc/exclusive-u-s-congressional-probe-finds-possible-lapses-in-deutsche-bank-controls-sources-idUSKCN1VR0PX

[gaggedLouise]

Trump's team of lawyers for the impeachment trial are gone - all five have jumoed ship, just a week before the trial is due to begin. Trump demanded that they should center his case on loudly driving the claim of massive election fraud, a stolen election etc and casting him as the people's hero - rather than doing what any lawyer would do in this situation: focusing on trying to dissociate him from responsibility for the attack on the Capitol, and arguing that it is unconstitutional to impeach someone who is no longer in office.


Trump really is living in his own mental bubble. :)

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/30/politics/butch-bowers-deborah-barbier-trump-impeachment-team/index.html

Is he gonna call in Giuliani, Powell and Ellis now? ;)

[gaggedLouise]

Trump's team of lawyers for the impeachment trial are gone - all five have jumoed ship, just a week before the trial is due to begin. Trump demanded that they should center his case on loudly driving the claim of massive election fraud, a stolen election etc and casting him as the people's hero - rather than doing what any lawyer would do in this situation: focusing on trying to dissociate him from responsibility for the attack on the Capitol, and arguing that it is unconstitutional to impeach someone who is no longer in office.


Trump really is living in his own mental bubble. :)

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/30/politics/butch-bowers-deborah-barbier-trump-impeachment-team/index.html

Is he gonna call in Giuliani, Powell and Ellis now? ;)

It just struck me that Trump's design with trying to force his lawyers to this key pitch could well be: "the Senate GOP will never convict me, no matter what, so I might as well use this as a tribune on live TV where me and my lawyers get to sell the story of the stolen election all over again to the people, on primetime tv".

[Haibane]

The problem with that logic though is his team would have to provide the evidence, which they can't.

I think that, despite a common view, most lawyers are principled, professional people who work to the rule of law. They also value their careers. They probably don't want to work for him because doing so would break both these priorities.

[Oniya]

Discussion of the impeachment trial is being taken up in a new thread.  As this thread has become an over-10,000 post monster, it is now being closed.