Impeachment, Take Two (and Other Trump News)

[Oniya]

And it turns out that there was a report by the Trump campaign, before the Georgia phone call, that disputed the idea that there was a 'minimum of 5,000' dead people that voted.

Turns out the upper ceiling of 'votes cast by dead people' is more like 23.

[Humble Scribe]

Trump apparently expects to be arrested on Tuesday.


Like John Oliver, I shall keep on posting this in the hope that one day it is true.

[gaggedLouise]

Trump apparently expects to be arrested on Tuesday.


Like John Oliver, I shall keep on posting this in the hope that one day it is true.

"They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!!" 

Trump claims that he hasn't received any kind of notice that the prosecutors and court want to see him, but that there's some secret plan going on by the Manhattan court to haul him in. I think that's his usual spin, most likely he has been sent some kind of notice, perhaps for a pre-trial hearing. But it fits his purposes to play it up like he's a hunted man as he hits the 2024 campaign trail for real (he has an upcoming big rally in Texas next week).

[Oniya]

"They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!!" 

Trump claims that he hasn't received any kind of notice that the prosecutors and court want to see him,

As this is for the Stormy Daniels case, he was asked to come in a week ago:  https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-invited-to-testify-on-stormy-daniels-payments-before-ny-grand-jury-lawyer-says

[Beorning]

Alright, please explain something to me.

All these angry (and panicked) Trump posts about "the leading presidential candidate" getting arrested on bogus charges by a "racist DA working for Soros"? His cries for his followers to "take back the nation"? These are clear calls for riots. So... can't Trump be charged with inciting violence? Is it seriously legal for a politician in the US to respond to a potential indictment in that way..?

[GloomCookie]

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

So the way it works is, at least my understanding, is that while his remarks are inflammatory, at no point has Trump actually made a direct call to action, which is the criteria. For example, telling someone to "Go out and shoot the next cop you see" is a direct call to action, while "Take back the nation" is broad and can be interpreted many different ways, such as "Go vote" instead of directly calling for violence.

It's a fine line but it's got enough wiggle room that Trump can say it without getting in trouble. That's why he wasn't impeached the second time around, because he included remarks about doing so peacefully, so he didn't directly call for violence.

Does that clear things up?

[greenknight]

He can be indicted, but it's a question of "Why?" If the current case going through NY's grand jury process is strong, why get distracted by the sideshow? Trump is surrounded by law enforcement officers 24/7 anyway, if the grand jury approves a bill of indictment he will be arrested as soon as the warrant is presented to the Secret Service. The only clue we'll have before he's presented to the court is that his social media posts might abruptly stop.

[Oniya]

Additional charges can always be brought.  We've still got the new Special Counsel doing things with the election interference case.

[Beorning]

I have a question regarding yesterday's events (meaning, Trump being charged etc.):

Why wasn't he arrested?

This is a criminal case and he's charged with felony. Meanwhile, from what I've read, he just went to court, listened to the charges, pleaded not guilty and left. Why? I thought that he'd forced to pay bail, at least...

I don't understand the US legal system... *is confused*

[Keelan]

I have a question regarding yesterday's events (meaning, Trump being charged etc.):

Why wasn't he arrested?

This is a criminal case and he's charged with felony. Meanwhile, from what I've read, he just went to court, listened to the charges, pleaded not guilty and left. Why? I thought that he'd forced to pay bail, at least...

I don't understand the US legal system... *is confused*

From reading on it and my own understanding of the law:

First: he was arrested; he was brought in, fingerprinted and otherwise booked into the system, plead 'not guilty' on all counts before a judge, and left. This qualifies as an arrest and he does have that on his criminal record now.

He was not jailed/imprisoned however, and there's a couple potential reasons:

1) As a previous President, he receives lifelong Secret Service protection at all times, and he's still entitled to that even now and would be essentially impossible to maintain in jail/prison

2) They want to avoid painting him like a martyr - which is a proposed reason for why they did not take and release his mugshot as well - and putting him in prison gives him the chance to spin his alleged persecution more.

3) This one is my spitballing guess, but as it's a nonviolent offense and NY City has been engaging in a lot of "progressive" changes to how criminal activity is responded to and handled, they may not have been able to hold him.

1 and 2 are theories I saw proposed in articles and by experts, so I'd assume those over my theorizing.

[TheGlyphstone]

Or a possible 4/variant 2: Generally, the only way to keep a defendant in prison/jail is to have the judge not permit bail, and that would be all but impossible to justify for charges like this. And there's no cash bail Trump could not pay for easily, so posting bail at all would be a waste of time and largely feed back into #2.

[greenknight]

RE: the Secret Service, they are cops. He isn't really released, he is surrounded by police 24/7. He isn't a flight risk. (In fact, he was probably arrested by his security detail rather than the NYPD upon presentation of the arrest warrant.)

[GloomCookie]

Right. Trump, being a former president, probably was booked and saw a bail judge immediately, where they had to post a bail. Under the United States Constitution Eighth Amendment,

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

In essence, the judiciary can't require anyone pay an excessive bond just because of their status. Given that most detainees can post a signature bond, also known as a Release on Own Recognizance (ROR), which means they give their word that they will appear before the court at their mandated time or pay a fine for not appearing. Even if Trump did not sign an ROR, he had the money to post bail immediately.

According to the New York Times, New York reformed their bail system approximately three years ago to eliminate bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies (Article here).

Given that Trump's secret service must handle his security and are not required to answer to their charge (i.e. Trump can't just order them to let him fly off to the Cayman Islands, for example), it's very much unlikely that he'll be going anywhere on the day he's required to appear in court.

[Azy]

This is all pretty novel since no other former president has ever been arrested, but my thought was that he's been released into the custody of Secret Service since they still guard him anyhow.  Trying to keep him in a prison would be both a logistical and political nightmare.  Like GloomCookie said, the Secret Service people around him are not his private body guards.  They answer to the federal government, Homeland Security specifically I believe.  I'm sure there are certain rules put in place for him that just weren't released to the public for security reasons. 

[GloomCookie]

I had to look it up but yes, Secret Service used to report to the Department of the Treasury since one of their roles is the investigation and prosecution of counterfeit money, but they were transferred to the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.

[TheVillain]

Also worth pointing out, he's charged with 34 counts of Falsifying Business Records in New York. That's considered a non-violent crime that's on the border of Misdemenour and Felony. As in, by itself it's considered a Misdemenour but it gets upgraded to a Felony if it can be proven that it was done with the intent of committing fraud or covering up another crime.

The DA appears to be just going for the Falsifying Business Records with intent to cover up another crime, but isn't going after the other crime (at least at the monent). That's considered an unusual strategy. It's possible that was just part of the trade-off, it's not really appropriate to ask for bail for a crime that is by itself a misdemenour.

[gaggedLouise]

Interestingly, there are now both pro-and anti-Trump releases of various t-shirts with fake mugshots- No mugshot was ever taken at the court, though it could have been. :)

Here is a pro-Trump release, with an array of other Trump t-shirts below...

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fvariety.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2023%2F04%2FDonald-Trump-Fake-Mug-shot.png&tbnid=fyWfZsLBneS-ZM&vet=12ahUKEwic9eW68pT-AhVCzyoKHV1eCJAQMygBegUIARCVAg..i&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fvariety.com%2F2023%2Fdigital%2Fnews%2Fdonald-trump-fake-mug-shot-t-shirt-1235573659%2F&docid=pI2A34jGHAmxnM&w=640&h=360&q=Trump%20t-.shirt%20with%20fake%20mugshot&client=firefox-b-d&ved=2ahUKEwic9eW68pT-AhVCzyoKHV1eCJAQMygBegUIARCVAg

Direct link to an article in Variety magazine about the pro-Trump tee: https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/donald-trump-fake-mug-shot-t-shirt-1235573659/

[GloomCookie]

Also worth pointing out, he's charged with 34 counts of Falsifying Business Records in New York. That's considered a non-violent crime that's on the border of Misdemenour and Felony. As in, by itself it's considered a Misdemenour but it gets upgraded to a Felony if it can be proven that it was done with the intent of committing fraud or covering up another crime.

The DA appears to be just going for the Falsifying Business Records with intent to cover up another crime, but isn't going after the other crime (at least at the monent). That's considered an unusual strategy. It's possible that was just part of the trade-off, it's not really appropriate to ask for bail for a crime that is by itself a misdemenour.

Most misdemeanor crimes don't net jail time. Even with a felony conviction, I guarantee Trump will never spend a day in jail. Hefty fines, house arrest, those are a possibility, but there's no judge in their right mind who is going to send a former president to a federal prison. A misdemeanor just isn't worthy of the DA's time in a case like this, and the focus is on netting that felony conviction. Adding a misdemeanor takes the focus away from the big prize and can be seen as the DA being spiteful.

Also by charging 34 counts, that means the DA has specific evidence of Trump doing something like this on 34 separate occasions, which itself is part of the strategy. One or two counts could be brushed off as an accident and no real indicator of guilt, while a solid 34 helps paint the picture that this is a recurring issue with Trump and that he's done it repeatedly and knowingly in the past. The other crime doesn't matter much, it's the fact it happened 34 times that becomes the focus.

[gaggedLouise]

I would have loved seeing Fox pulled into a trial against Dominion and having to put Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and pother key people of the channel on the witness stand - it would also have been an important test case for what you can get away with saying in a "news situation" when you're working for a big TV network and supposed to be doing news journalism - but Fox having to pay almost 800 million dollars is also a nice reward.  And effectively an admission that they went too far.

[GloomCookie]

Fox News does everything it can to keep the Murdoch family out of the limelight and. Also, last quarter they reported a profit (that's profit, mind you, meaning after they've paid everyone) of $4.61 billion. $800 million hurts, but that's only 17% of the money they made in October, November, and December of 2022.

Fox makes buckets of money, and they're not required to make any admission of guilt this way. Dominion still makes a lot of money, but they also can't go out and claim that Fox lied about them, only that they won a settlement. There's no official admission of guilt so Fox can keep on going.

[Beguile's Mistress]

The next hurdle for FOX is the Smartmatic lawsuit over the same thing.  Smartmatic is going for over $2 billion dollars so even it it ends in a settlement the award could be over $1 billion.  Of course, Smartmatic has the premise that if FOX lied in one instance they lied another.

[Keelan]

The next hurdle for FOX is the Smartmatic lawsuit over the same thing.  Smartmatic is going for over $2 billion dollars so even it it ends in a settlement the award could be over $1 billion.  Of course, Smartmatic has the premise that if FOX lied in one instance they lied another.

IIRC, Dominion's was for around $1.6B, settling for just under half it seems. I would probably see a similar sub-billion settlement at sometime in the future unless Smartmatic decides to drop.

It's a money case after all, so nobody involved wants this to go before a judge to decide.

[Oniya]

Fox News does everything it can to keep the Murdoch family out of the limelight and. Also, last quarter they reported a profit (that's profit, mind you, meaning after they've paid everyone) of $4.61 billion. $800 million hurts, but that's only 17% of the money they made in October, November, and December of 2022.

Fox makes buckets of money, and they're not required to make any admission of guilt this way. Dominion still makes a lot of money, but they also can't go out and claim that Fox lied about them, only that they won a settlement. There's no official admission of guilt so Fox can keep on going.

So, the judge's ruling that the statements were factually false can't be used?  Because it would be accurate to say that 'Fox News spread false statements that Dominion machines were rigged.'  (The case, at the point of settlement, was going to hinge on whether the network knowingly spread that falsehood.)

[Keelan]

So, the judge's ruling that the statements were factually false can't be used?  Because it would be accurate to say that 'Fox News spread false statements that Dominion machines were rigged.'  (The case, at the point of settlement, was going to hinge on whether the network knowingly spread that falsehood.)

Taken from Cornell:

To prove prima facie defamation, a plaintiff must show four things:
1) a false statement purporting to be fact;
2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person;
3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and
4) damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person or entity who is the subject of the statement.

In other words: False statement, communicated to someone unrelated, with some level of intention, and that cause harm.

At the time of settlement, they had established: falsity, communication, harm, but NOT intent. Of all the elements, intent is the hardest to prove.

As such, Fox can - and indeed their statement was that of - say that they recognize that THE COURT found these statements to be false, but they don't actually have to admit that they themselves consider it to be false, nor do they have to establish further WHY they did so. Settlement after all is not an admission of guilt in a civil case.

So, the safest claim would be "The courts found that Fox made 20 statements that were false against Dominion" I would imagine.

[Kurogane]

In any event, there will be another round of lawsuits from another voting machine outfit. I assume Fox does not have unlimited resources, and may potentially and permanently damage their financial position. Is it possible that we may witness the bankruptcy of this organization?

And gaming this out further, I have little doubt that the hosts at Fox may yet profit from these events in the form of books, movies, and other employment with other media outlets. They are, unfortunately, quite popular with their viewers.