Does Trump ever do any jail time? (1 Viewer)

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    Optimus Prime

    Optimus Prime

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    Everything I've seen and heard says that the split second Donald Trump is no longer president there will be flood of charges waiting for him

    And if he resigns and Pence pardons him there are a ton of state charges as an understudy waiting in the wings if the fed charges can't perform

    What do you think the likelihood of there being a jail sentence?

    In every movie and TV show I've ever seen, in every political thriller I've ever read about a criminal and corrupt president there is ALWAYS some version of;

    "We can't do that to the country",

    "A trial would tear the country apart",

    "For the nation to heal we need to move on" etc.

    Would life imitate art?

    Even with the charges, even with the proof the charges are true will the powers that be decide, "we can't do that to the country"?
     
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    Optimus Prime said:
    Aren't their other artists who've made similar claims against Trump?
    =============================================

    Reggae singer Eddy Grant may succeed where the attorney general of New York state and other powerful figures have struggled – by forcing Donald Trump to answer questions under oath in a legal proceeding.

    Grant sued the former president and his campaign over the use of the song Electric Avenue in an ad in 2020.

    In the ad, Grant’s song plays over an animation of Joe Biden traveling slowly in a handcar, after a Trump campaign train passes at high speed. Remarks from Biden are also heard.

    According to Grant’s lawsuit: “As of 1 September 2020, the video had been viewed more than 13.7m times; the tweet containing the video had been ‘liked’ more than 350,000 times, re-tweeted more than 139,000 times, and had received nearly 50,000 comments.”

    Grant claims copyright infringement and seeks $300,000 in damages. Trump has failed to have the suit dismissed.

    Lawyers for the former president have claimed fair use, saying the ad was satire, exempt from copyright law, and used footage reposted without knowing its origin. They have also said Trump cannot be sued because of “presidential absolute immunity”...........

    Click to expand...

    I loved that ad.

    It was one of Biden's best ad's. Showed off his human side.

    It sure was an odd thing that Trump's campaign had it made, and then ran it for Biden like that.

     
    So, charging a politician for committing political crimes may be seen as a partisan political attack
    ==============================================================

    As a House Select Committee continues to look into the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, some legal experts believe a criminal referral from Congress to the Department of Justice regarding former President Donald Trump could have negative results.

    On Monday, a former member of the Obama administration told Politico that he believes such a move could actually "backfire" and make the Justice Department's work on any such case even more difficult.

    This comes after a ruling last week from U.S. District Court Judge David Carter, who wrote that the former president "more likely than not" committed a felony when he attempted to illegally obstruct Congress on January 6, 2021.

    Ronald Weich, a law professor at the University of Baltimore and a former assistant attorney general in the Justice Department during the Obama administration, told Politico that if the January 6 committee issued a criminal referral against Trump, it would only complicate things, adding politics into the mix.

    "A formal criminal referral from Congress in this situation could backfire. The Justice Department's charging decisions should not be influenced by political pressure, and that's how this might look. A referral could make it harder for the Department to prosecute," Weich said.

    Weich is not the only legal expert to hold such an opinion. Randall Eliason, a criminal law professor at George Washington University, also told Politico that any such move from Congress would likely not be worth it in the long run.

    "It would have no legal effect, just political ones," he said. "And Congress wouldn't be telling the DOJ anything it doesn't already know, or that it couldn't tell the DOJ without a referral. So I still feel like the costs outweigh any benefits.".............

    MSN

    www.msn.com
     
    On first glance, I think I agree with this. DOJ doesn’t need a criminal referral from the Jan. 6 committee to do its job. Hopefully it’s already into the investigation phase.

    Just as an aside, I saw somewhere that if you compare the Nixon investigation to this one, the first indictments would be due this fall. So we are possibly on track still. Whenever I see someone claiming that DOJ is “doing nothing” and that Biden should immediately fire Garland, I try to think about this. We don’t know what they are doing and that’s a good thing. Biden shouldn’t interfere and people urging him to might just want chaos, because that would bring chaos and is a Trump move.
     
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    Interesting read
    ===============

    .........Trump has yet to be charged for possible crimes in these cases, and those in his inner circle seem to be comfortable continuing potentially criminal behavior. What then is the endgame for all of these prosecutors? What strategic choices might they be making? And what might the thinking be behind their decisions?

    I talked through these questions with former presidential investigators and a defense attorney for a former vice president. Together we came up with five potential options for these prosecutors. None are good. But it’s clear doing nothing might be the worst option of all.

    This is the route some fear investigators have been taking since Trump left office. Another name for this approach might be the “Chickenshit Club” strategy. The term was coined after James Comey admonished prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York for only taking less high-profile cases that they felt certain they were going to win.

    What is the strategic thinking behind being a member of the “chickenshit club”? There is a legitimate concern that if the Department of Justice goes ahead with a prosecution now—however righteous—a future DOJ might abuse that precedent to go after a corrupt future president’s political enemies without any real basis. “One of the things that’s holding [Attorney General Merrick] Garland back is the fear that we don’t want to be seen as one of those republics where as soon as you have a new government, you go ahead and indict everybody in the old government,” said Martin London, former Vice President Spiro Agnew’s one-time defense attorney.

    Another fear would be that prosecuting Trump for his conduct leading up to Jan. 6 could unleash more political disruption, and even potentially violence, or at least augur to Trump’s political benefit in a future campaign. “If you indict Trump, you run the risk of having a sort of major revolt” among his supporters, argued David M. Dorsen, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York and assistant chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee.

    There is also a legitimate fear that if you go after “the king” and you miss—say with an acquittal or a hung jury—the consequences could be more disastrous than doing nothing at all.

    Since so many different prosecutors are looking into Trump, there could also be a hope among these different offices that another investigator will be the one to bite the bullet and go first. When he was working for legendary New York prosecutor Robert Morgenthau, Dorsen says members of the U.S. attorney’s office would fight to grab high-profile cases. That does not appear to be the case this time: “Here, everybody is saying ‘after you.’ ”

    One variation of the “Chickenshit Club” route would be for criminal prosecutors to wait until James files civil charges and let that case—along with previously filed tax fraud charges against the Trump Organization—be the final word.........

    While James has already compiled and made public vast amounts of evidence, simple financial accountability for Trump is far from a given. Because the Trump Organization is a privately held company that is backed largely by a single bank, a true reckoning could be hard to come by no matter the evidence. If Trump’s backers refuse to abandon him, there’s only so much James might be able to do to punish his business for financial crimes.

    It must also be said that Trump has over the course of six different decades survived hundreds and hundreds of civil actions with his businesses still intact........

    Perhaps the least likely of all of the options would be for prosecutors to offer Trump a plea deal. Such a deal, if Trump accepts, could, hypothetically, result in no jail time for the former president. Consider that former vice president, Spiro Agnew, pleaded “no contest” to one count of tax evasion and agreed to resign from office. Under such a similar deal, Trump could agree to never run for office again and receive no jail time.

    There are many problems with this approach. For starters, there would be no way to hold Trump to the deal, Dorsen notes “If Trump pleads no contest and he agrees never to run for office, and if he runs for office anyway what’s going to happen?” Different courts in different states might reach different determinations about whether he could be on the ballot. In other words, there would be chaos............



    MSN

    www.msn.com
     
    Not jail, but he has been found in contempt and it is going to cost him daily.

    apnews.com

    Judge finds Donald Trump in contempt in New York legal fight

    A New York judge has found former President Donald Trump in contempt of court for failing to adequately respond to a subpoena issued by the state’s attorney general as part of a civil investigation into his business dealings.
    apnews.com apnews.com
     
    Bigdaddysaints said:
    i don't think that works with contempt. but i am sure he'll find a judge to over rule it at some point...
    Click to expand...
    Something like this is not appealable to the U.S. Supreme Court so the highest avenue of review he would have is the New York Court of Appeals (they have an odd naming system and that's what their supreme court is called). It's also pretty rare for contempt rulings to be overturned.
     
    SaulGoodmanEsq said:
    Something like this is not appealable to the U.S. Supreme Court so the highest avenue of review he would have is the New York Court of Appeals (they have an odd naming system and that's what their supreme court is called). It's also pretty rare for contempt rulings to be overturned.
    Click to expand...

    I have an old friend that was a lawyer in NYC and is familiar with the court system and the judge that ruled on this....he seems to think this will stick.....FWIW
     
    Sounds like we'll see one way or another what New York has soon

    Pleading the 5th 500 times?
    =====================================
    Lawyers for the New York State Attorney General's Office said they are nearly finished with their civil investigation into the Trump Organization, after taking steps to unravel the real estate company's assets that they described as being as complex as a "Russian nesting doll."

    They still want to search two cell phones belonging to former President Donald Trump and the laptop and desktop of his longtime executive assistant Rhona Graff, but investigators told a judge this week they're moving quickly.

    "The process is near the end," Kevin Wallace, senior enforcement counsel at the New York State Attorney General's Office, said Monday.

    A third-party firm hired to search the Trump Organization's files had identified 151 custodians, or people or entities, that might have documents sought by the attorney general's office, but Wallace said they are focusing on the "most important outstanding pieces of information" because the clock is ticking for it to file a lawsuit.

    The statute of limitations for various laws under consideration goes back several years, but the tolling agreement with the Trump Organization that paused the clock expires on Saturday. Even as the agreement expires, it could still be several weeks before the attorney general's office decides its next step in the investigation.............

    Lawyers for the New York State Attorney General's Office provided a glimpse into their investigation, which has spanned three years, after the judge asked them to explain what is taking so long and where it is heading.

    "Given the upcoming end of the tolling agreement we will likely need to bring some kind of enforcement action in the near future to preserve our rights," Wallace said. He noted that before they file the attorney general's office has agreed to meet with the Trump Organization attorneys and "allow them to make their case" and discuss what any "appropriate resolutions might look like."

    In addition to the tolling agreement's expiration, evidence may become stale and memories may fade, Wallace noted. "Counsel is in favor of moving as quickly as we can."

    The civil investigation has been hanging over Trump for several years. He has been focused on the investigation that threatens his family business, calling Attorney General Letitia James "racist" and accusing her of pursuing him for political gain.

    The attorney general's office has already said in court filings that it believes there were misleading statements and omissions in Trump's financial statements that were provided to lenders and insurers and used for tax benefits. Trump has called the investigation a witch hunt, and he and the company have denied any wrongdoing.

    The judge previously ordered Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump to sit for depositions. The Trumps have appealed and it's unclear when a decision will come. Eric Trump was deposed in 2020 and asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 500 times. Last month, at the attorney general's request, the judge ordered the Trump Organization to comply with subpoenas by Friday............

    MSN

    www.msn.com
     
    When some two dozen New Yorkers filed into a Manhattan courthouse this week to finish out their grand jury service, the case against a man who would have been the world’s most prominent criminal defendant was no longer before them.

    That man, Donald J. Trump, was facing potential criminal charges from the grand jury this year over his business practices. But in the weeks since the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, stopped presenting evidence to the jurors about Mr. Trump, new signs have emerged that the former president will not be indicted in Manhattan in the foreseeable future — if at all.

    At least three of the witnesses once central to the case have either not heard from the district attorney’s office in months, or have not been asked to testify, according to people with knowledge of the matter...........

     
    Not jail time, not even a trial, but it's something I suppose
    ======================================

    The Trump Organization and his 2017 inaugural committee have agreed to pay $750,000 to settle allegations that Donald Trump improperly poured inauguration donations into his Trump International Hotel at inflated prices, thereby enriching his family.

    The settlement ends an investigation into alleged inaugural fund misspending by DC Attorney General Karl A. Racine, who said Tuesday that it holds the former president's business and inauguration committee "accountable for illegal actions."

    The AG's civil case against Trump's business and inaugural committee had been bound for trial as recently as February, when Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former close friend and advisor to Melania Trump, said on Twitter that she would be lead witness to take the stand.

    The settlement notes that the Trump Hotel, one of the defendants in the AG's civil case, is in the process of being sold, possibly incentivizing the AG to settle.

    But Trump's side may also have been more eager to settle after a DC judgereinstated the Trump Organization as a defendant in the case, a decision that also came in February.....

     
    As a special grand jury convenes to consider potential criminal charges against former President Donald Trump, we'll surely learn much about the evidence gathered by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her team of prosecutors and investigators in Georgia. The evidence appears to be sufficient to justify an indictment -- but, even if a grand jury ultimately does return a criminal charge, prosecutors will need to overcome a series of legal and practical obstacles before Trump faces meaningful consequences.

    We already have a good sense about Willis' substantive focus. In her January 2022 letter to the Georgia judiciary requesting a special grand jury, Willis wrote that she has evidence establishing a "reasonable probability that the State of Georgia's administration of elections in 2020 ... was subject to possible criminal disruptions." It is a crime under Georgia law to "solicit" election fraud, including "willfully tamper[ing]" with votes or final certification.

    The central piece of publicly-available evidence is Trump's infamous January 2, 2021 phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Trump begged Raffensperger to throw some votes his way: "All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes." We've now learned that, during that phone call, one of Raffensperger's deputies was frantically texting then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, urging him to end the call immediately.

    The key will be establishing Trump's criminal intent. His defenders likely will argue that he genuinely believed he had won the Georgia election (despite all evidence to the contrary) and that he merely wanted to ensure a full and fair vote count. But prosecutors will focus on Trump's use of the word "find." If Trump truly believed he had won, and had received more votes than Joe Biden, why would he need Raffensperger to "find" votes? And why precisely 11,780 votes -- exactly one more than Biden's margin of victory?

    Despite his status as a central witness, according to Willis' letter, Raffensperger has declined to testify. She says Raffensperger and other witnesses have made clear that they will testify only if and when they receive grand jury subpoenas.

    This is why empanelment of the special grand jury is so important: now, Willis will have the power to issue subpoenas, through the grand jury, to compel witnesses to testify..........

    MSN

    www.msn.com
     
    Optimus Prime said:
    Interesting read
    ===============

    .........Trump has yet to be charged for possible crimes in these cases, and those in his inner circle seem to be comfortable continuing potentially criminal behavior. What then is the endgame for all of these prosecutors? What strategic choices might they be making? And what might the thinking be behind their decisions?

    I talked through these questions with former presidential investigators and a defense attorney for a former vice president. Together we came up with five potential options for these prosecutors. None are good. But it’s clear doing nothing might be the worst option of all.

    This is the route some fear investigators have been taking since Trump left office. Another name for this approach might be the “Chickenshit Club” strategy. The term was coined after James Comey admonished prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York for only taking less high-profile cases that they felt certain they were going to win.

    What is the strategic thinking behind being a member of the “chickenshit club”? There is a legitimate concern that if the Department of Justice goes ahead with a prosecution now—however righteous—a future DOJ might abuse that precedent to go after a corrupt future president’s political enemies without any real basis. “One of the things that’s holding [Attorney General Merrick] Garland back is the fear that we don’t want to be seen as one of those republics where as soon as you have a new government, you go ahead and indict everybody in the old government,” said Martin London, former Vice President Spiro Agnew’s one-time defense attorney.

    Another fear would be that prosecuting Trump for his conduct leading up to Jan. 6 could unleash more political disruption, and even potentially violence, or at least augur to Trump’s political benefit in a future campaign. “If you indict Trump, you run the risk of having a sort of major revolt” among his supporters, argued David M. Dorsen, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York and assistant chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee.

    There is also a legitimate fear that if you go after “the king” and you miss—say with an acquittal or a hung jury—the consequences could be more disastrous than doing nothing at all.

    Since so many different prosecutors are looking into Trump, there could also be a hope among these different offices that another investigator will be the one to bite the bullet and go first. When he was working for legendary New York prosecutor Robert Morgenthau, Dorsen says members of the U.S. attorney’s office would fight to grab high-profile cases. That does not appear to be the case this time: “Here, everybody is saying ‘after you.’ ”

    One variation of the “Chickenshit Club” route would be for criminal prosecutors to wait until James files civil charges and let that case—along with previously filed tax fraud charges against the Trump Organization—be the final word.........

    While James has already compiled and made public vast amounts of evidence, simple financial accountability for Trump is far from a given. Because the Trump Organization is a privately held company that is backed largely by a single bank, a true reckoning could be hard to come by no matter the evidence. If Trump’s backers refuse to abandon him, there’s only so much James might be able to do to punish his business for financial crimes.

    It must also be said that Trump has over the course of six different decades survived hundreds and hundreds of civil actions with his businesses still intact........

    Perhaps the least likely of all of the options would be for prosecutors to offer Trump a plea deal. Such a deal, if Trump accepts, could, hypothetically, result in no jail time for the former president. Consider that former vice president, Spiro Agnew, pleaded “no contest” to one count of tax evasion and agreed to resign from office. Under such a similar deal, Trump could agree to never run for office again and receive no jail time.

    There are many problems with this approach. For starters, there would be no way to hold Trump to the deal, Dorsen notes “If Trump pleads no contest and he agrees never to run for office, and if he runs for office anyway what’s going to happen?” Different courts in different states might reach different determinations about whether he could be on the ballot. In other words, there would be chaos............



    MSN

    www.msn.com
    Click to expand...

    Surely some smart Democrat operator somewhere has twigged to the fact that failing to hold Trump accountable will further enervate a Democratic base that already brings new meaning to the word 'unenthusiastic'.
    Sure, rub America's nose in it. Yes, Virginia there really are two separate justice systems. One for the powerful and corrupt and another for plebes like us. It doesn't matter who we vote for or if we vote at all, so why bother?

    Surely these words are being spoken in the Halls of Power somewhere. They can't be this obtuse, can they?
     
    So, what do we believe: Lost, deliberately destroyed or still has?
    ==========================================

    Asked by the New York attorney general to turn over personal cellphones to aid her investigation of alleged fraud at his company, Donald Trump said he had lost them.

    In an affidavit filed as part of an attempt to stop the accrual of fines for non-compliance with subpoenas, a $10,000 daily penalty which has reached $150,000, the former president said: “I am not currently in possession of any Trump Organization-issued phones, computers or similar devices.

    “I believe the last phone or device I was issued by the Trump Organization was a cellphone in 2015. I no longer have the cellphone in my possession and I am not aware of its current location.

    “Since 1 January 2010, I previously owned two flip phones and a Samsung mobile phone. I do not have the two flips [sic] phones in my possession and I do not know their current whereabouts.”

    Trump said he took the Samsung with him to the White House when he was sworn in as president in 2017, but “it was taken from me at some point while I was president. I do not have the Samsung in my possession and I do not know its current whereabouts”...........

     

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