Friday, August 12, 2022

Trump's Crime Spree

 

If only he stopped BEFORE grabbing women’s privates, this country wouldn’t be in a constitutional crisis with overtones of insurrection and civil war.

But as we know, if a criminal gets away with one crime, he won’t stop committing crimes until he is charged, convicted, and sentenced.

It’s getting difficult to keep up with our former president’s ongoing crime spree, but here’s just a snapshot of what the Big MAGAt will be facing.

Trump's 1/6 and election crime spree:

1. Seditious conspiracy

2. Incitement of insurrection

3. Obstruction of an official government proceeding

4. Conspiracy to defraud the US


Other crimes uncovered by the 1/6 hearings:

5. Wire Fraud (“Official Election Defense Fund”)

6. Witness tampering

 

But wait, there’s more.


Already howling mad MAGAts are pacing nervously, waiting to be told what they’re supposed to think and believe.

In the meantime, here are some facts for them to ignore:

The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the warrant and inventory of what was taken from Mar-a-Lago.

Here is what they list:

One set of docs marked TOP SECRET/SENSITIVE COMPARTMENTED INFORMATION (TS/SCI), the highest level of classification. (Did Trump give nuclear weapons secrets to Putin or the Saudis? If so, he violated the Espionage Act of 1917.)
Four sets of docs marked TOP SECRET Three sets of docs marked SECRET.
Three sets of docs marked CONFIDENTIAL .
20 boxes of other items including binders of photos, a handwritten note, info on the president of France, and the clemency order for Roger Stone.
Plus documents that exist that are so sensitive they can’t even BE LISTED on the inventory.


The August 8, 2020 FBI’s search warrant for Mar-a-Lago specified:

18 USC 2071 — Concealment, removal or mutilation
18 USC 793 — Gathering, transmitting or losing defence information
18 USC 1519 — Destruction, alteration or falsification of records in Federal investigations

These are crimes number 7,8,and 9, not counting the Espionage Act of 1917.

But wait, there’s more.

Even more charges are to come from SDNY and Georgia.

~~~~~~~
Ruh, roh!

Cue howling mad MAGAts:


"But Hillary's emails!"
"But Hunter Biden's laptop!"
"But gas prices!"
"But leftists HATE America!"
"But Black criminals!!!"

And now this:

“But whatabout Obama’s 30 million documents?”

Let’s give them a couple more facts to ignore, shall we?

The Washington Post reports:

In its statement, NARA said that it obtained “exclusive legal and physical custody” of Obama’s records when he left office in 2017. It said that about 30 million pages of unclassified records were transferred to a NARA facility in the Chicago area and that they continue to be maintained “exclusively by NARA.”

Classified records from Obama are kept in a NARA facility in Washington, the statement said.

“As required by the [Presidential Records Act], former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration,” the statement said.

 

The poor pitiful, victimized, traumatized and bewildered MAGAts. They can’t even blame the Black Guy for any crimes.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Trump has been a criminal for decades and if people had followed Trump's New York antics they would have known that.

Dave Dubya said...

Anonymous,
Everyone who isn't a Trump-supporting Republican knows he's a serial criminal and traitor. But he needs to face justice and accountability if that is to change. Even then, an authoritarian cult will reject reality, even if their leader is convicted of crimes.

His hate, lies divisions and destruction of our republic may never be repaired.

Anonymous said...

Whatever happens to Trump is not going to change the fascist movement in the USA. They will survive as they have for a century. Fascism was alive and growing long before Trump came on the scene.

Dave Dubya said...

Anonymous,
Exactly what I've been saying for decades. Unless Americans learn the war on fascism never ends, fascism will win.

Foreigner said...

I know only one historical record of when fascists was defeated.

And that was not in court, and not through swearing in comments.

But on a scorching earth battlefield...

Shaw Kenawe said...

And yet, a look around the internet will show you that Trump continues to be the far right's hero. It is a sickness and some sort of mass hysteria.

We all know that Trump is a con man, worst president ever, and generally an awful person who is causing great harm to this country. Those who support Trump either don't care because they share similar "values" or love what he is doing because they are just like him. What I would love to see is less focus on Trump and more focus on the Republicans who support him.

Dave Dubya said...

Foreigner,
Exactly.

History teaches us that Hitler should have spent decades in prison after his Putsch. Trump is showing the US the nature of fascists. To hold power, he will deny the will of the voters, and never concede his electoral defeat.

Trump must be held accountable under our law for his Putsch and other crimes, or it will get much worse.

Sadly, the US does the opposite. Nixon was pardoned for his crimes, Reagan got away with trading arms for hostages his contra/cocaine scandal. Bush and Cheney got away with torture and starting a war based on lies. Trump might get away with all his crimes yet.

We're not a nation of equal justice under law, and too many of us are rejecting democracy.

This will doom us.

Dave Dubya said...

In 1934, on February 20th, 20,000 Americans attended a Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden.

Obviously there were many many more American Nazis.

Their descendants are now the Trump Cult.

Foreigner said...

\\Sadly, the US does the opposite. Nixon was pardoned for his crimes, Reagan got away with trading arms for hostages his contra/cocaine scandal. Bush and Cheney got away with torture and starting a war based on lies. Trump might get away with all his crimes yet.

Well. There is an explanation, which you probably would not like.

From two sides. Theory of games, which says that it's better to oversee minor misdeeds -- so that perpetuators would not try to compete in invening more cunning plans to play with rules.

Practical. Things like war on drugs, rising level of punishment -- do not help with thwarting criminality.
There is even more apparent historical example -- your fight against alcogol drinking, that helped to rise Mafia.

Dave Dubya said...

Foreigner,
Those are interesting and valid points in themselves.

In the case of our presidential misdeeds, they escalated from a relatively minor offense of burglary and cover-up, to arming terrorists with drug money, to torture and war based on lies, to outright insurrection and aggravated domestic terrorism.

Minor misdeeds are not in this equation. I don't know if game theory addresses the nature of criminals who commit more serious crimes after they, or their peers, get away with lesser offenses.

And of course drug and alcohol prohibition laws were doomed to fail because they are victimless crimes and the laws ran counter to thousands of years of accepted human nature and behavior.

The explanations for the presidents' unaccountability that I recall were, "It would needlessly divide the country", "let the people decide next election", "it's old news".

Bush/Cheney won re-election because Americans believed they "won" in Iraq.

Under 500 were killed in 2003, but over 900 were killed in 2009.

Bush would not have won re-election if Americans had known how badly it would turn.

Then there is the factor of denial, or even the inability of our people to comprehend the crimes to begin with.

Most Americans do not see these criminal leaders as criminals.

Millions still love, trust and believe Trump. He may yet be indicted, but I expect leniency because it would be under the cover of "Moving forward". This was the "reasoning" why Bush and Cheney got away with lies and torture.

It seems a general principle is that the rich and powerful are less accountable under law than the rest of us. They are supported by their political power and party, appoint judges and can buy the best lawyers. This give them a louder voice in their defense.

Maybe there is a game theory explanation that covers this?

I see it as the corollary to what I call "The Real Golden Rule".

Those with the most gold rule.

Those who rule are above the law.

Trump said he could shoot a person on the street and not lose any supporter. He was right.


Foreigner said...

\\In the case of our presidential misdeeds, they escalated from a relatively minor offense of burglary and cover-up, to arming terrorists with drug money, to torture and war based on lies, to outright insurrection and aggravated domestic terrorism.

Well, isn't it almost every prezident, every government of almost every country. Especially ones which are big and proud and feel that their "natonal interests" spilling far beyond own borders. Accomlicit in such "crimes"?

Which makes it hard to define it properly -- who are guilty and who are not. And who'd be a policeman? And who'd be a judge? And where to build a prison for such criminals? Et cetera, et cetera.

So, I think, all the World looking at you here, because you are, as usual, will be an example in everything it will come to.
Aquital of mr.T... and all autoritarians of the world will give a deep sigh of relief.
Injailing of mr.T... and all autoritarins of the world will take deep breath in... before starting screaming even more. About how unjust USA are.


\\Minor misdeeds are not in this equation. I don't know if game theory addresses the nature of criminals who commit more serious crimes after they, or their peers, get away with lesser offenses.

Oh, there is very interesting (and damn practical) branch of it.
Known under name Prisoner's Dilemma. Go read about it. ;-)


\\It seems a general principle is that the rich and powerful are less accountable under law than the rest of us. They are supported by their political power and party, appoint judges and can buy the best lawyers. This give them a louder voice in their defense.

\\Maybe there is a game theory explanation that covers this?

I think you understand it yourself, that any such research would be condemned as "not a science" and will not recieve funds for such researches in the first place. ;-P


\\Those who rule are above the law.

To that... I see as more ingenious saying "if power is without chance to abuse power -- is there a charm in achieving such power?"

Dave Dubya said...

Foreigner,

Good points.

If nothing else, one thing is proven. Power corrupts.

And if a person was corrupt before gaining power his corruption will expand into greater corruption and crimes against the people and humanity.

As they say, everything Hitler and his Nazis did was "legal", for no other reason than they said it was.

Anonymous said...

If we all knew Trump was a serial criminal, why did we elect him president?

Dave Dubya said...

Anonymous,
We didn't all know Trump was a serial criminal. And the reports of his behavior were ignored by his authoritarian followers who would vote for him no matter what he did, or who he shot, or even his attempted coup.

Most Americans voted against him. He only won due the Republican advantage in the Electoral College.

The fact he still has such fanatic support shows us just how racist, ignorant and hateful Americans can be. Only White people gave him a majority of their votes. No other racial or ethnic group would give him a majority of their votes.

Anonymous said...

"Everyone who isn't a Trump-supporting Republican knows he's a serial criminal and traitor."
It took more than Trump supporting Republicans for Trump to win the election.

Dave Dubya said...

Anonymous,
You're right. "Everyone" is too broad a term, and it took more than Trump-supporting Republicans to elect Trump. He did sway enough low-information gullible independents to win the Electoral College. He still didn't get a people's mandate by popular vote.

It would be more accurate to say, by now everybody who isn't a Trump-supporting Republican SHOULD know he's a criminal, if they are paying any attention to the 1/6 Committee or any media that is not lying for Trump.

If any of those non-Republicans still swallow Trump's Big Lie, they remain every bit as gullible, duped and willfully ignorant. But many of them are waking up to the reality seen by the majority of Americans.

A June ABC News / Ipsos poll published Sunday found that found that 58% of respondents believe that the former president should be charged for his role in the Jan. 6 riot.

A recent Harvard CAPS-Harris poll showed that 53 percent of voters agreed Trump should face a criminal indictment for Jan. 6.

Also Remember none of these polls include the developing case of Trump's stolen govt. documents at Mar-a-Lago.

My "Everyone" statement about non-Republican Trump supporters will only become more true as the indictments begin. And they will.

Anonymous said...

Boom! "The VP does NOT have the power to declassify, only POTUS. Joe Biden stole classified documents. Time to raid Joe Bidens homes Biden should face a criminal indictment

Dave Dubya said...

Anonymous,

We know you have a tingle up your leg over this.

Didn't you learn a sitting president can't be indicted?

The FBI is investigating this as they should. There's no evidence he took the documents to his home. There was with Trump.

Note the additional difference between the cases.

The documents were not shipped out of DC, not at his home, not shown to visitors, and locked away.

The NARA didn't make numerous requests for the documents to be returned.

They were immediately returned without obstruction.

Trump could have avoided all of his mess if he complied. He did not. NARA didn't even have to ask him. Biden's lawyers are cooperating.

CNN reported:

The documents were discovered when the President’s personal attorneys were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. The President periodically used this space from mid-2017 until the start of the 2020 campaign. On the day of this discovery, November 2, 2022, the White House Counsel’s Office notified the National Archives. The Archives took possession of the materials the following morning.”

“The discovery of these documents was made by the President’s attorneys,” Sauber added. “The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives. Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”