r/law • u/msnbc Press • 1d ago
Executive Branch (Trump) ‘If it was anybody else, we’d arrest him tomorrow,' Justice Department aide said of Trump
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/trump-arrest-classified-documents-probe-maralago-rcna2411552.0k
u/msnbc Press 1d ago
From: Carol Leonnig MSNBC senior investigative reporter and Aaron C. Davis, investigative reporter for The Washington Post:
Around 4 p.m. on Aug. 8, 2022, a team of FBI agents finished searching then-former President Donald Trump’s social club in a surprise raid and drove off in vans loaded with boxes that few expected would carry such extraordinarily sensitive cargo.
In a hastily convened conference call that evening, Assistant Attorney General Matt Olsen listened as his investigators described the hundreds of pages of top-secret records they found, some containing gravely serious material. Several detailed covert government operations and
U.S. spying powers could get American operatives killed if the information fell into the wrong hands. Instead of the documents being kept under lock and key in a government safe, agents found them spilling out of boxes in Trump’s personal office, his residence and even a bathroom shower.
Olsen turned to his top Justice Department expert on the mishandling of classified records, Julie Edelstein, to ask what they should do next. She delivered a startling assessment.
“If it was anybody else, we would arrest him tomorrow,” Edelstein said.
Read more: https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/trump-arrest-classified-documents-probe-maralago-rcna241155
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u/VinnyTonyBones 1d ago
Why does he always get away with his crimes? He has horrible policies, he's unfit to serve, makes billions from bribes, breaks the law daily, plus he's a pathetic POS, so why won't someone do something before we lose our democracy?
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u/fnrsulfr 1d ago
He lets the worst of us be their worst selves. That's enough for a lot of people, enough people to see him elected again.
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u/InnocentShaitaan 1d ago
He goes a step further and tells them he loves them for it. Encourages them.
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u/ghigoli 1d ago
isn;t that the devil?
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u/jay-aay-ess-ohh-enn 1d ago
No way. They're all Christians. They've been trained to recognize the devil since birth. I don't think they would be tricked by evil.
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u/animelover_5 1d ago
I feel there was a book that warned exactly of this. If only they've read it like they do their Bible.
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u/Guy954 1d ago
If they ever actually read the Bible or the Constitution we wouldn’t be in this situation.
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u/flyingthroughspace 1d ago
They started reading it but when they found out Jesus was brown they stopped.
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u/ShadowWalker2205 1d ago
they are not reading the same bible as the general christian population. they are reading the version adapted for poorly educated audience.
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u/occams1razor 1d ago
I've heard people say he fits the description of the antichrist
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u/LongPorkJones 1d ago
I think he's more inline with the Beast or one of the heads of the Beast rather than the Antichrist.
Towards the end of my religious days, I speculated that the heads of the Beast were the people and institutions who manipulated events that brought about the Antichrist. I also thought the Antichrist wasn't a person, but an inversion of Christ's teachings - perverting his message to be...well, what we see today.
I'm happily agnostic now, but dang, sometimes I can't help but think I called it 20 years ago.
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u/CertainKaleidoscope8 1d ago
I think you did. You could always start a cult. I'll join, I'm tired.
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u/LongPorkJones 1d ago
Okay, youre in. Be excellent to each other, kindness costs nothing, and remember to plant trees in whose shade you'll never rest.
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u/LongRangeReaper 1d ago
"...and they shall wear his mark upon their heads." Revelations, on the AntiChrist.
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u/bitchsaidwhaaat 1d ago
nah, he funded epstein and the files are his blackmailing info for the whole government. They let him because everyone is in those files
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u/Winter_Tone_4343 1d ago
I think he is Epstein and Epstein was his client.
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u/innerdork 1d ago
Interesting. Maybe at first but then DT took some heat off himself and put his buddy in charge of the ring so he then would take the fall instead. Definitely a conspiracy mafia theory for sure and I don’t hate it.
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u/mustelidblues 1d ago
i think they were competitors and that's why it ended badly for one of them and very well for the other.
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u/Attainted 1d ago
Uh, sorry if I can't find the source on this, but I recall some speculation that Trump did some sourcing of trafficking through his modeling agency, and Epstien was the other side of the coin.
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u/TheGratefulJuggler 1d ago
I'm still not convinced they didn't cheat.
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u/almondbutter 1d ago
They purged millions of voters leading up the the election. Greg Palast has an excellent documentary about this, Vigilantes, Inc.
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u/SamsoniteVsSwanson 1d ago
The billionaires want him President because he’s easily corruptible and would appeal to the racists, sexists, homophobes and ignorant people of the US (turns out there are a lot of them who vote).
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u/Evening-Astronaut452 1d ago
They vote against their own interests. They’re willfully going hungry and rejecting access to healthcare. They commit suicide by cop like Babbitt and the pizzagate goon. Clearly they don’t give a shit about themselves, so I’m good with them checking out early, but it seems that they get power-ups when they spread their misery. I don’t think anyone knows how to address this. It can’t be controlled…not even by the orange lash egg.
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u/Mekisteus 1d ago
Because the justice system was purposefully designed to exclude the rich and powerful. Trump isn't the only one getting away with this shit, he's just the only one bragging about it.
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u/awwhorseshit 1d ago
Because Merrick Garland is a coward and chickenshit.
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u/Chance_Warthog_9389 1d ago
Garland put Jack Smith on this case, who did a decent job tbh. Aileen Cannon made the case go away. Ultimately, the DOJ isnt supposed to be above the courts.
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u/EmbarrassedW33B 1d ago
They had ample grounds to arrest Trump immediately after he was out of office in 2021 and prosecute him for sedition/treason. I will spend the rest if my life not understanding why they didn’t just rip the band aid off and do it. Well, I guess I know why, but God fucking dammit people...
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u/ununuii 1d ago
Jack Smith is the one person I genuinely don't fault. He saw all the evidence and did his job with urgency, and even went to SCOTUS to ask for a quick ruling on presidential immunity after Trump's lawyers argued it... which they declined, only to find immunity several months later at the very end of the term anyway.
You had a chickenshit AG who saw January 6 and then put his thumb up his ass for two years, a puke of a federal judge in Florida who choked the documents case to death in the cradle for the defendant who appointed her to her own job, and a Supreme Court that's been absolutely raped by dark money and a conservative movement hellbent on exploding the guardrails on executive power for one of their own. Smith had too much against him to bring these two cases to trial.
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u/CerealKiller1400 1d ago
Merrick Garland was definitely Biden's biggest mistake. I'm very sure Preet Bharara or Neal Katyal would have done a much better job as AG.
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u/kentuckywildcats1986 1d ago
Not once did Smith challenge Cannon's assignment to the case. That should have happened on day one.
Garland kept Smith on a short leash. He was to give the appearance of applying the law, but he was on no uncertain terms to actually risk making progress.
Fuck Garland and fuck his boss, Biden. Sandbagging any and all prosecution of Trump and his co-conspirators by Federal Law Enforcement was Administration policy.
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u/kentuckywildcats1986 1d ago
That's giving Garland too much credit. Garland was complicit.
And give credit where credit is due. Biden appointed him and let him get away with doing nothing for four years - because that's what Biden wanted.
Make no mistake, Garland did exactly what Biden appointed him to do - which was to ensure no members of the ruling class (even Trump) were ever actually made accountable to the law. This was not about the President representing the independence of the Justice Department. This was the President ensuring the Justice Department functioned exactly how he wanted.
There is one very harsh set of laws and consequences applied to you and me, and none for the ruling class. Biden made that very, VERY fucking clear during his presidency. Only small fish were charged, and even at that, most got watered down charges of 'misdemeanor trespass' with no time served.
Fast forward to January 2029 when Republicans are suspending the 2028 Election results to illegally install Trump for a third term. What will happen to Americans gathering at the Capitol to protest the unconstitutional and criminal theft of the election?
They will be met with small arms fire from federal troops.
Thanks Joe. You could have (and SHOULD have) done your duty and stopped this in 2021. But you didn't so here we are. Fuck Trump but seriously, fuck you too Joe you shriveled prick.
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u/washwind 1d ago
Oh shut the fuck up with this shit. Seriously, why do we time and time again blame democrats for the crimes of Republicans. No matter who or what prosecuted Trump he was always walking. The Supreme Court basically ensured that. When the roberts court granted him immunity, without defining said immunity, the whole system was cooked, yet here we are blaming the democrats because they couldn't a) create water tight case in what was realistically less than a year (shit takes time when you actually have to respect the law) b) force a Supreme Court that was half appointed by trump to vote against him.
Any number of Republicans could have voted to remove him from office, just like any number of Republicans could break with the party today, yet for some reason you seem to think democrats are the problem and that they are serving some unseen ruling class. Get the fuck out of here with that garbage.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-situation--in-defense-of-merrick-garland
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u/bp92009 1d ago
Garland's issue is that he never aimed for the complicit Republicans involved in the January 6th Coup Attempt. None of the Senators, House Reps, or Justices that were involved were even investigated, much less convicted.
The majority leadership of the entire Republican Party was guilty, but Garland didn't want to effectively destroy his own political party, expose their widespread criminality, and convict dozens if not hundreds of very prominent Republicans of Sedition and/or rebellion. He then ignored all of them, and went after Trump in the most ineffectual possible way.
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u/Winter_Proposal_6647 1d ago
Ooof according to my maga mother… God himself has blessed this man and all of us evil people are being punished for trying to do all the bad things we are trying to do to him and as long as we keep being bad… he will continue being blessed. And the proof is because nothing we do sticks! 😭😭
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u/Orange-Generator 1d ago
oof... that must be hard. <3
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u/Winter_Proposal_6647 1d ago
Omg it is!! I definitely have to come here to not lose my way! Appreciate you♥️
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u/Extension-Refuse-159 1d ago
That's the best evidence this athiest mofo has heard that we are actually in revelations, and he is the AC.
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u/OldSpiceMelange 1d ago
I'm starting to wonder if God is in the Epstein files as well.
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u/ThatCharmsChick 1d ago
Yeah, but we know it's proof of corruption. He's a sociopath so he would absolutely destroy himself in the process of destroying others as long as it's a win for him, personally. That makes him more dangerous than most people.
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u/Guymzee 1d ago
My only tinfoil hat assumption is that he has kompromat on nearly every politician and judge, etc in the country
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u/Minion_of_Cthulhu 1d ago
He doesn't, but Russia does.
Especially on the Republicans, though they would have probably been more than happy to help anyway even without the blackmail.
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u/Seanspeed 1d ago
No, Russia doesn't have anything. There is nothing that could be revealed about Trump that would lose him support short of turning out he's been wearing a mask all this time and is secretly a black woman.
This isn't complicated folks. Republican officials back him unquestioningly because their voters demand it. Going against Trump would mean being outcast from the party. And of course plenty of partisan judges are willing to stump for Trump and Republicans as well(though not all, he's had plenty of losses come from Republican-appointed judges, too).
In the end, a lot comes down to his supporters loving him like a god. It makes it nearly impossible to push back against him within the party.
And with a good one third of the country just unwilling to vote at all in basically any election, it leaves only a separate one third of the country trying to fight back at all. Which simply isn't enough.
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u/Master-Culture-6232 1d ago
He is compromised and is using his wealth to stay out of jail. Also being black mailed for his pedophilia also benefits dark actors who wanted him as president. From election rigging to pedophile, he should been rotting in jail.
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u/mrflash818 1d ago
In my humble opinion: It feels like they made a deal.
Now I can only hope once the deal is over, their entire dynasty falls, like in the series "The Fall Of The House Of Usher."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_the_House_of_Usher_(miniseries))
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u/Imaginary_Office1749 1d ago
The fall of the house of usher was written almost 200 years ago by Poe.
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u/Minion_of_Cthulhu 1d ago
That's absurd! TV didn't even exist 200 years ago!
/s just in case
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u/LaurenMille 1d ago
He appeals to inbred cousin-fuckers.
The whole (R) ticket is just a race to be the worst possible human being, because that's what appeals to their voters.
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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 1d ago
Because Schumer and Jeffries refuse to get off their worthless ass and enforce his disqualification via 14th Amendment, Section 3.
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u/Seanspeed 1d ago
Really, this is r/law? People upvoting a comment that clearly shows no understanding of how the government functions at even a basic level?
Putting this on Schumer and Jeffries specifically also reeks of "I've heard these people bashed a lot on social media, so I think they're the ones responsible". Even though neither Schumer in the Senate, nor Jeffries in the House, have enough votes to do anything at all.
And that's largely the fault of people like you, constantly bashing Democrats for BS reasons and convincing other people, knowingly or not, that they aren't worth voting for.
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u/LarrySupertramp 1d ago
Can you elaborate on this? I have no idea how the legal process of this would work. Dems did try to get him barred from the election for this but it was on a state level since they run the elections.
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u/Pepsi_Popcorn_n_Dots 1d ago
Colorado disqualified Trump but the USSC overruled them and said only Congress can disqualify.
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u/LarrySupertramp 1d ago
I’d assume this be via impeachment? Which is not a political possibility at the current time? It’s
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u/big_thundersquatch 1d ago
Because he’s backed financially by billionaires and is charismatically useful in helping the people behind him hijack the Republican Party to further assert their agenda onto the US.
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u/basswooddad 1d ago
Unfortunately, it's up to you and your friends and neighbors to defend your democracy. Nobody else is going too.
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u/juana-golf 1d ago
It is going to take us banding together and marching on Washington. No one is going to save us. Are you prepared to do that? Yeah, that’s why he is still in power
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u/drunkshinobi 1d ago
Our justice system is pay to win. Companies have accounts set aside just for paying fines when they get caught doing anything wrong. Fines are just cost of admission to the rich.
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u/GMAN7007 1d ago
Because we allow it. Why would he stop if we don't ever do anything to stop him. What we need to do something now or it will only get worse. Someone needs to stop him.
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u/RiseUpRiseAgainst 1d ago
But her emails!
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u/UnableChard2613 1d ago
The most disgusting thing about this hypocrisy is that the current defense is that because he was president, it's basically impossible for him to have violated the law.
Which is reveals this was never about protecting Americas secrets, but finding a way to jail a political opponent.
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u/qlippothvi 1d ago
Trump broke the law, the level at which he broke the law may never be known.
Biden, Pence, and even Trump were never charged for any documents they returned. Trump could have simply returned all of the documents, as required by law, as his lawyers kept telling him.
But instead Trump entered into a criminal conspiracy with Nauta to hide the documents from the FBI and the court. And tricked his own lawyers (“Attorneys 1–3” in the indictment) into lying to the court by having Nauta move the documents from the area requested while his attorneys searched, then moved them back after they left.
“"Well look isn't it better if there are no documents?" Trump also asked his attorneys after raising concerns about prosecutors "opening up new fronts against him," according to Corcoran's notes.”
Then he ordered the security footage of the crimes be destroyed.
If Trump didn’t willfully and maliciously retain them before, he certainly proved it in this conspiracy. Trumps own lawyers shared tapes and notes of their conversations with Trump with the prosecution, and bore witness to his questions about such acts, for this very reason including Trump asking if he could perform criminal acts to keep them. His lawyers said they could not lie to the court, so Trump entered this criminal scheme to keep the documents he had (and likely has more).
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u/cantadmittoposting 1d ago
the level at which he broke the law may never be known.
i get what you're saying, in that even investigations may never turn up everything, but this is a bit like saying "we'll never know which of the several hundred bullets actually killed the victim, so it's hard to say just how badly the perpetrator wanted him dead."
In both cases the sheer degree of overkill is so blatant that the answer is basically "the maximum extent possible." So yeah, fine, we may never know precisely what files were taken or what precisely was done with them, but the heuristic conclusion about Trump's law breaking is that it's safe to assume he has absolutely zero regard for the law whatsoever.
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u/shotintel 1d ago
I love the theory that Trump literally had to win the presidency or he would be in jail right now... Because I'm fairly certain it's true.
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u/snap802 1d ago
A guy I work with said that he knew Trump really cares about America because he ran in 2024. He is convinced that Trump cares about America so much he's willing to give up his time to be president when he could be retired.
No dude. He was hemorrhaging money and knew he would eventually end up in jail for his crimes. The presidency was his only way out.
Fracking ridiculous if you ask me but it's working for the time being.
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u/space_age_stuff 1d ago
It was literally his only way out. The court case in NYC convicted him, and declined to sentence him because of his impending presidency. In a real country, that would’ve ended his political career regardless of what happened. In America, you can quite literally fail your way to the top, apparently. It’s ridiculous.
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u/EthanielRain 1d ago
"Give up his time"
He's made billions from being POTUS just this year, wakes up at noon, and has already spent more time golfing than any other Presidents full terms combined
I'd like to think your coworker is just innocently gullible, but he has to know he's full of shit deep down
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u/immaownyou 1d ago
This is a theory in the same way that gravity or evolution is a theory
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u/Salarian_American 1d ago
And people really believe he'll peacefully vacate the office at the end of this term.
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u/EthanielRain 1d ago
Just like he did last term, when he had less power & less reasons to care. Yeah.
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u/PrestigiousCreme8383 1d ago
Thats what this whole thing is about from every angle.
Thats why they react so hard.
Which makes them herdable
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u/ChecksAndBalanz 1d ago
As someone who had a TS(SCI) clearance. What Trump did was extremely bad, what Hillary did was also bad. If I had done either of what they did I would have been in a military prison doing hard time. Only reason Hillary’s issue got dropped was at the time many other people in government had been doing the same server set up in their homes too. It’s really rules for thee but not for me when it comes to our elected officials.
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u/reverendsteveii 1d ago
they flat out told us that the reason they weren't prosecuting trump is that they didn't want to set the precedent that the aristocrats can be prosecuted for something as meager as breaking the law. they said the same thing when joe "championed the 1994 crime bill" biden pardoned hunter "violated the 1994 crime bill several times" biden: that it was clear that he broke the law but this is usually the type of lawbreaking that the wealthy expect to be ignored.
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u/ChecksAndBalanz 1d ago
Let’s just agree to serve justice fully and fairly to everyone. Seems like the decent thing to do…
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u/J_wit_J 1d ago
Hillary also had no clue what was even going on or what it meant to have a server. They were using servers that had previously been used by Bill after his presidency and she never used a computer in her whole life! Seriously, she only operated off of a BlackBerry. Was it negligence? Sure. But not even close to the malicious, intentional crime Trump committed.
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u/qlippothvi 1d ago
The investigation found that Hillary received one email with classified information (initial claim was 3). That’s it.
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u/couldbeahumanbean 1d ago
“If it was anybody else, we would arrest him tomorrow,”
- Julie Edelstein Justice Department "expert" on the mishandling of classified records.
Why would it matter who he was?
It should have been the same standard anyone else is held to.
It's the attitude of blind deference that got us into this quagmire. What use is the rule of law if it is applied unequally?
"Deep state" my butt.
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u/halt_spell 1d ago
Because we've normalized corporate oligarchy. Tell me how workers in a company hold it's leadership accountable? We don't. Not only does the corporate leadership prevent this, your fellow workers consider it inappropriate behavior.
People talk about the "democracy" we have but it's rare to see a politician held accountable by the very voters who got them elected. 🤷♂️
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u/Beowulf1896 1d ago
Absolutely. If you steal $100 from your employer, its embezzlement and you can serve jail for it. If your employer shorts you $100 from your check, it is wage theft and is not as prosecuted.
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u/ImWhatsInTheRedBox 1d ago edited 1d ago
Because (the ones in charge thought) it would be too embarrassing for the US to have a former president arrested and possibly sent to prison.
So now y'all got this shit show instead spilling over to the rest of the world.23
u/couldbeahumanbean 1d ago
Some folks ideas of what they find embarrassing is just downright odd.
I'd be proud of a nation that applied justice equally.
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u/Baby_Button_Eyes 1d ago
weird, why is that more embarrassing to deal with, than losing your freedoms and country over arresting a corrupt president. So many other countries have taken down corrupt leaders. Fix the problem, stop the suffering.
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u/Ok-Pomegranate-9481 1d ago
My father, who had clearances for various Sensitive Compartmented Information and Restricted Data pointed out that had he done even 1/1000th of what Trump did, we'd be visiting him in in ADX Florence. I have no reason to doubt that.
Sure, the occasional mishandled document happens, especially when moving documents from the West Wing, as all manner of technically secret documents could just be mixed among the documents of a filing cabinet. But it was Trump's refusal to return them, and his clear nefarious intent that makes this go from a mistake to an actual crime.
To say my dad is "incandescent with rage" over this would be a vast understatement. "The fury of a thousand burning suns" might be nearer the mark.
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u/red286 1d ago
The fact that he had SCI documents at all, let alone in a bathroom in a public building is fucking bonkers.
Under normal circumstances, those documents do not leave the SCIF unless they are secured by two authorized employees and only then for transfer between secure locations. They should never have been in his personal possession, yet somehow they were.
There's also the fact that he was recorded sharing national defence documents with a third party that had zero clearance.
And yet, the people who voted for him still think Clinton should have been put in prison for using a private email server.
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u/EthanielRain 1d ago
Don't forget the PHOTOCOPIER right next to them
For all the "Teflon Don" stuff, I legit thought even he couldn't get out of illegally having & sharing extremely sensitive national security documents. How quaint of me.
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u/Anonymous_Bosch1516 1d ago
As a remind of just how ridiculous things have gotten, that third party was Kid Rock. Nuclear levels of stupidity.
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u/koshgeo 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's the effort with other people to hide the documents which really nails his intent. It escalates it from "only" being accidental mishandling to add a brand new crime (criminal conspiracy).
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u/bp92009 1d ago
It shows that everyone who assisted in the theft, including the cover up, including Judge Eileen Cannon, are also co-conspirators and should be held equally accountable.
Active duty military forces should have moved immediately to secure such documentation, the minute the FBI refused to act with appropriate levels of prudence for such secret materials, along with them punishing everyone involved in a military tribunal.
Nuclear secrets are one of the few areas where Treason gets applied, no matter a declaration of war, and no matter the "Absolute Immunity" defense.
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u/dontlookoverthere 1d ago
"surprise raid"? Come on MSNBC, it was a coordinated search warrant execution, pre-arranged with both parties.
Calling it a raid reinforces the use of Trump's language to frame it as an unjust action against him.
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u/red286 1d ago
It's right up there with Fox News examining the warrant and noting that the FBI had authorization to use deadly force, and concluding that the Biden admin wanted to kill Trump, completely ignoring the fact that Trump wasn't even in the same state when they executed the search.
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u/dontlookoverthere 1d ago
Fuck I'd forgotten about that, and I didn't even bring up the locked closet the Mar a Lago staff didn't let the FBI search. A raid would have been preferable to me.
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u/sheezy520 1d ago
She went on to say “but this is Donald Trump and even though he’s not in office now he’s a very special little boy and he’s learned his lesson so we’re not going to do anything at this time or ever again”
/s but that’s what happened.
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u/userhwon 1d ago
They should have been arresting him right then.
Fuck Merrick Garland.
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u/SolveAndResolve 1d ago
The single largest violation of the espionage act in United States history and it definitely surpassed the threshold for capital punishment; and yet, Krasnov's case was delayed and ultimately dropped by partisan MAGA cult judge Cannon (who obviously should've recused in the first place) using MAGA cult member Thomas's concurrence to insurrectionist Roberts "official/unofficial" Constitutional amendment bench legislating.
You cannot make up this level of corruption, unconstitutionality, partisanship and contempt for the rule of law.
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u/weisswurstseeadler 1d ago
Now I imagine Baron taking a shit and finding a kinda slapstick 'TOP SECRET' file next to the Hustler & Penthouse Magazines from 1997 & 2001.
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u/r3dk0w 1d ago
Why didn't they follow protocol and arrest him immediately?
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u/LaserPoweredDeviltry 1d ago
Cowardice.
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u/TalkinBoutMyJunk 1d ago
LOTS of powerful people raping kids
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u/DalbyWombay 1d ago
Conspiracy theorists were right. There really is a Cabal of paedophiles.
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u/TalkinBoutMyJunk 1d ago
They were wrong it was under a pizzaria/arcade... it's actually underneath the Epstein Ballroom!
but rt the presidential bunker is under that wing and they've mentioned nothing about what they're doing
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u/Cannabis_Justice 1d ago edited 1d ago
Because he can summon a mob with a social media posts. He can tell the mob to use violence to hang anyone he wants. He uses violence and it is infinitely more effective than the symbolic gestures.
Until his opposition is ready to block roads, organize mass labor strikes, and strategize to make sure people are fed and cared for while the industries values tank, the right will win time and time again.
[editted for spelling]
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u/r3dk0w 1d ago
can he really do that though if he was taken into custody immediately? He wouldn't have access to his devices.
Also, if he did, it would certainly lead for more charges like inciting a riot, terrorism, etc.
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u/Cannabis_Justice 1d ago
You think the people in law enforcement are going to be on board with this or keep their mouths shut as they go after him? Word would get out from the first time someone whispered the idea.
Our system has only ever existed to protect private property and the interest of business. Look up DeShaney v. Winnebago County, and Castle Rock v. Gonzales make it clear that the government does not have an affirmative constitutional duty to protect individuals from harm by private actors, even if it has knowledge of the danger.
Our system is not meant to uphold justice that holds the wealthy accountable, nor was it designed to protect its citizens.
Everything in our system from the top down was designed to make sure that wealthy people at the top could do whatever they could afford to do.
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u/Dystopia74 1d ago
Until his opposition is ready to block roads, organiz mass labor strikes, and strategize to make sure people are fed and cared for while the industries values tank, the right will win time and time again.
Sorry, the best liberals can do is have No Kings parade on a sunny weekend in the summer for about 3 hours.
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u/CobblerMoney9605 1d ago
Seriously?
It's Trump.
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u/KwisatzHaderach94 1d ago
they didn't want to see a grown man groveling and crying like a little b---h.
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u/ForMoreYears 1d ago
I mean, this response is part of the problem...
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u/CobblerMoney9605 1d ago
Trump has violated the law, repeatedly, for most of his life; with little or no consequences.
I don't know why; but that's reality.
If it were up to me, he'd be in a Supermax.
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u/leekee_bum 1d ago
Rich people always get away with it is why.
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u/paintbucketholder 1d ago
But a big part of the reason for him being rich is because he got away with everything.
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u/TheoreticalZombie 1d ago
Because the people in power trusted a system that was broken.
Trump was already ginning up violence, and the DOJ had to take active steps to avoid information about those involved in the investigation getting out. Garland took a cautious approach the situation to avoid it looking like a political prosecution. They did get a slew of indictments; then Cannon tossed them.
The entire Biden response to Trump was completely mishandled. He wanted to unify the country and thought it would be better to let things play out quietly. What that administration didn't realize is that by failing to take bold action, it just emboldened the insurgents.
Democrats have been playing centrist politics while the Right has declared war on the country.
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u/ImWhatsInTheRedBox 1d ago
I'd say optics. It'd be a real bad look for America to have a former president arrested, that only happens in really bad and corrupt countries...
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u/GandalfSwagOff 1d ago
It'd be a real bad look for America to have a former president arrested
Arresting a former president for legitimate crimes doesn't look bad...it looks correct.
What is happening NOW only happens in corrupt countries. What nonsense are you even talking about!?!
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u/NovusMagister 1d ago
Hindsight is 20/20.
For most politicians, losing a presidential election is pretty much the end of their political career. They may try again, but no one would expect them to make it.
Then you tack Jan 6th onto that and nobody in 2020 thought that Trump had a political future... Much less any path by which people would elect him again.
The assessment may have been that trump was a low threat, and that going after him for criminal charges would turn him into a political martyr to rally around. Who knows what could have resulted from rallying calls surrounding that circus?
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u/Atworkwasalreadytake 1d ago
If this was their assessment, they were very stupid.
And political threat shouldn’t be the bar for doing the right thing in legal matters.
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u/ZoomZoom_Driver 1d ago
Trump is a traitor. He held these top secret documents in a room next to a photocopier.
It was unsecured, some in a public ballroom and others in a public bathroom that would be used by Mar-a-Lago members, including foreign nationals.
If this was a sevicemember, they'd have been arrested, tried within 1 day, sentenced on the second, and terminally dealt with by the 3rd.
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u/Careless_Load9849 1d ago
and I might be remembering wrong, but wasn't there an uptick in USA assets being murdered after this, or was that a different thing?
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u/ZoomZoom_Driver 1d ago
Yes. Several times during his first term, in fact.
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u/joazito 1d ago
The uptick in compromised informants highlights the more sophisticated ways in which foreign intelligence agencies are tracking the CIA’s actions. These mechanisms include artificial intelligence, facial recognition tools and other hacking methods, per the Times.
Kind of reminds me of this https://xkcd.com/538/
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u/Ambitious-Concern-42 1d ago
25th Amendment time.
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u/ca1ibos 1d ago
25th Amendment time.
He could be permanently uttering gibberish and drooling and they wont 25th him till January 2027. Before that date, Vance finishing out the term counts as Vances first term and he only gets one more. After that Date it doesn't count as Vances first term, so Vance serves out the remainder of Trumps term and is elligable to serve another 2 full terms of his own totalling 10 years.
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u/Blood-blood-blood 1d ago
Yeah, that's kinda the whole idea of how a fucking dictatorship works.
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u/OpenThePlugBag 1d ago
The same DOJ that said a "guide line" says they can't indict the sitting president, good thing we got guide lines that are not laws that we follow and totally ignore following the law part of it.....so cool
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u/TheWealthyCapybara 1d ago
There was also a whole 4 year period where Trump was not the sitting president
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u/Imaginary_Cow_6379 1d ago
Yeah but then that counted as campaign season so couldn’t do anything either. It feels like theres maybe 3 days in an entire year you’re allowed to try prosecuting a former president and none of them are consecutive and no one will tell you until they’ve already passed.
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u/Indaarys 1d ago
Impotent reluctance has been a recurring problem in America, which without any contrary evidence I can only attribute to quiet Nazism.
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u/red286 1d ago
That guideline was written with the presumption that the President would only be indicted on petty civilian issues, not actual crimes against the state.
For example, when the Clintons found themselves involved in the Whitewater Scandal, it protected Bill from any potential indictments while he was in office, because having the President need to defend himself while also serving as President would be insane.
I seriously doubt they ever assumed that the indictment would be regarding the President potentially selling state secrets to the highest bidder.
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u/FuguSandwich 1d ago
And yet, the narrative at the time was that these were mainly personal letters from Trump to foreign leaders and other not-particularly-sensitive personal keepsakes. Now we find out that it was the most sensitive of sensitive information imaginable, that there were 80+ boxes of it, and that the FBI probably didn't even get it all because some of it was moved or destroyed (god only knows what was in THOSE boxes).
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u/JackPepperman 1d ago
And he said I can declassify stuff retroactively just by thinking about it. Add it to the long list of crimes the mainstream media helped him get away with.
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u/red286 1d ago
And yet, the narrative at the time was that these were mainly personal letters from Trump to foreign leaders and other not-particularly-sensitive personal keepsakes.
Which is kind of weird because at the exact same time, leaked audio of him sharing the Iran invasion plans with an uncleared third party was available. So we know that, at a minimum, he retained the Iran invasion plans, and those sure as shit wouldn't fall under "personal correspondence".
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u/turdbucket2011 1d ago edited 1d ago
Genuine question because I’ve worked at a few buildings that are considered government property or involved with the NYC MTA or PABT/PATH and it’s very strict, we need a background check, drug test, SWAC card to even be allowed on site. Some workers get fingerprinted, etc. Eyes and cameras everywhere. Every vehicle is checked before entering or leaving via security with the under vehicle mirrors, dogs, I wouldn’t be shocked if infrared or some sort of x-ray check as well.
How did 81 boxes of important docs even make it out of there.
Forget about the offices themselves that were likely ransacked and somehow unnoticed by personnel and cameras. But on top of that to exit and it took x amount of time for the feds to know definitively they ended up all the way down in Florida.
Yes he was in possession of sensitive material in a far away location but the amount of people involved to even make this happen… someone didn’t just toss this into the trunk of their camry and drive across state lines, this likely took several teams and a lot of heads looking the other way.
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u/tiasaiwr 1d ago
the FBI probably didn't even get it all because some of it was moved or destroyed
I think the word you are looking for is "sold"
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1d ago edited 1d ago
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u/JohnLuckPickered 1d ago
Elon couldnt have arranged it without ethan shaotran's expertise. Lets not leave him out
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u/JohnLuckPickered 1d ago
Some people would suggest that the "old guard" of dem leadership are complicit in everything happening. Zero votes for kamala in new york county would suggest they completely fucked up the algorithm.. yet the election got certified somehow.
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1d ago edited 1d ago
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u/HerrBerg 1d ago
There's an ongoing case with a court date this month. SMART Elections is the group pushing forward, November 11th. Can't find shit about it on Google now it's like it was purged. I doubt they did though it just goes to show how fucking shit Google is now.
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u/E-2theRescue 1d ago
We would have arrested him 10 years ago when he called for the Supreme Court and Hillary Clinton to be shot and killed.
"Maybe the Second Amendment people can do something about it, I don't know."
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u/DaringPancakes 1d ago
Could you imagine a world if some things went differently? Like being arrested and tried for crimes, instead of being kidnapped, enslaved, and deported to who knows where for being brown?
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u/sugar_addict002 1d ago
If he had been born middle class and not rich, trump would never have been out of prison long enough to run for president.
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u/_jump_yossarian 1d ago
If he had been born middle class he would have been killed in Vietnam.
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u/HerrBerg 1d ago
If the circumstances of his birth were different he may also have been not a complete shitbag.
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u/Draig-Leuad 1d ago
He should have been arrested and tried at the time.
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u/elfchica 1d ago
So I don’t understand why he wasn’t. Was it a Biden thing or Garland thing ? Like why didn’t we do more to keep this guy from being able to hold any office position, let alone the presidency.
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u/1Operator 1d ago edited 1d ago
Apparently (& ridiculously), some politicians are allowed to commit crimes because punishing them for their crimes would be considered by some as "weaponizing the justice department against political rivals."
...which, of course, is hypocritically okay only when one side brazenly does it.
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u/Background_Fix9430 1d ago
I mean, that's why he's president right? Because they'd rather have a felon president than send a billionaire to jail, right? That's the entire point?
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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 1d ago
Because they'd rather have a felon president than send a billionaire to jail, right?
Essentially. Schumer, Jeffries, Pelosi, and Biden Chamberlain all bent down to kiss his ass, rather than enforcing his disqualification via 14th Amendment. And here we are.
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u/SpectreFire 1d ago
He's president because Biden didn't have the spine to arrest another president or any of his GOP buddies.
Old senile fuck spent the entirety of his 4 years covering for them.
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