This game of punch/no punch backs the democrats have been playing for almost 10 years has become extremely tiresome. And it turns out “no one is above the law” might just be a boomerang, mate!
It's funny listening to this author/clown write Trump totally did what he did, while acknowledging he maybe/probably shouldn't have been charged for it. I read that indictment. It charged him with lying on his company's check register. Doesn’t say he gave it to anyone else or asked anyone else to rely on those entries. Ask anyone who supports Trump's conviction to explain to you the criminal conduct he engaged in that we're trying to deter. Don't let them quote the statute. Make them explain the behavior engaged in that he should go to jail for. Then enjoy!
When a law needs to be passed or amended to charge a specific person, that’s an unconstitutional bogus prosecution. Guilt or innocence is immaterial after that. As was the case in Trumps 34 felony convictions.
At worst it's a payoff that's not tax deductible. IRS isn't going to criminally charge you for that. If they catch it, they add it back to income. Every single person who owns a business has lied on the check register. Nobody has squeaky clean books
So in your mind, chants of “lock her up” which they didn’t, are the same thing as the very real and tangible lawfare Trump has lived through for 9 years. Uh huh. Got it.
Hillary Clinton mishandled classified data in a way that has a minimum 5-year sentence even for far smaller-scale offenses than hers, and she actively covered it up.
Meanwhile, perverting the law to absurdity to invent a crime absolutely is lawfare.
Well, I for one am looking forward to Hillary answering for the whole Russiagate hoax in front of a judge. Unless you've had your head in the sand, turns out all of that Russia collusion BS was just that, and she kicked it all off.
Your repeated "Trump absolutely did what he was prosecuted for" is false and makes me think you don't fully appreciate the extent of the problems with Bragg's case.
He wasn't prosecuted for mislabeling the payment, but specifically mislabeling in an effort to commit another crime. But there was no other crime. The judge (a Democrat) absurdly decided that the prosecution didn't have to prove or even really argue what the second crime was. This is already a serious violation of Due Process and alone should have sunk the case. Bragg vaguely suggested (in his closing argument) Trump violated campaign finance laws, but 1) federal prosecutors say no he didn't and 2) even if he had, campaign finance is exclusive to federal jurisdiction and has no business being litigated in a state courthouse.
Bragg's theory was so perverse and unconstitutional that it honestly wouldn't matter if Trump had done what they allege. But given he clearly did not mislabel the payment in order to commit a different crime, and the prosecution never had to prove he did, he literally did not do what they prosecuted him for.
As a fun extra, the Clinton campaign did something similar to, if slightly worse than, what Trump was accused of. It labeled its funding toward the Steele Dossier's opposition research as—wait for it—a legal expense! Only this wasn't in some internal corporate record but in official expense filings to the Federal Election Committee. That definitely IS a violation of campaign finance law. The result? Clinton's campaign paid a $40,000 fine. Number of felonies charged? Zero.
Meanwhile Trump gets to be called "convicted felon" on TV. That was, after all, the whole point.
Not only was there no second crime, but the theoretical second crime would have made a mockery of the downfall of John Edwards, who was convicted for using campaign funds to fund his affair. In this case, the "crime" would have been that Donald Trump DIDN'T use campaign funds, with the court arguing that he should have.
It doesn’t matter what it was, as that’s not what prosecutors sought his conviction on; they substantiated that he’d made false filings to conceal a crime and achieved conviction on those grounds
It doesn’t matter what crime Trump was concealing, only that they proved he was concealing one which they did
So your explanation is that Trump did the conduct, and the conduct is criminal, and New York has a controlling statute under which he could be tried, but none of that counts because reasons
It was fair - Trump was not prevented from making his defense; the issue he couldn’t surmount is that he factually committed the act barred by state law
Wrong. A trial in which the prosecution isn't required to even explain what crime they suspect the defendant of is definitionally unfair. Likewise one in which the defendant can be accused of a misdemeanor crime and end up convicted of multiple felonies, especially when those felonies would not be in the court's jurisdiction anyway. Likewise one which is presided over by a partisan opponent of the defendant. All of those pertained to this. I would go further and say that even when the defendant is guilty, a trial for a crime that no other person would ever be prosecuted for, even though other people were known at the time to have done the same thing and worse, is definitionally unfair too. Trump was apparently guilty of a misdemeanor (not any BS undefined felonies) but it was still worse from the point of view of justice to have prosecuted him, and only him, whilst letting Clinton and any other politicians who has ever misfiled accounts get away with it, than it would be for that particular law to fall into disuse.
Russiagate was a deliberate deep state attempt to hobble Trump's first term. Comey was part of that and accountability is in order. The lawfare that followed Biden's election was a deliberate deep state attempt to prevent Trump's second term. The people involved in that need to be held accountable as well.
The irony is that if the deep state had just kept hands off, then Trump would have retired by now. Instead he's hell bent on dismantling the leviathan and restoring accountability to a system that has forgotten the meaning of the word. That's long overdue.
I don't find it "improper" at all. Clowns like Comey and every other intelligence head like Bennan lie constantly and never face consequences. Gotta start somewhere.
this type of vindictive unproductive thinking is exactly what the piece is trying to warn against. this type of retribution for perceived slights never stops, it just continues until we're all dead.
It's been a lifetime of watching the well connected manipulate the system. Perhaps the only thing that will change that is prosecutions and convictions.
In the bigger picture, the underlying problem has caused much, including the corruption of capitalism that is behind many of the troubles faced now by the citizenry.
It also is at the foot of the vast mistrust we have of our institutions. Just watch commercials or other PR to see the ever-present outright lying we are expected to believe.
"We care about you" is such BS when it's obvious they only care about themselves.
This is the root of the performative culture in the world.
The real problem is scope and severity. The Trump indictment was BS. It took a highly technical violation and created a felony fraud. Comey is taking a factually shaky and almost certainly legally insufficient indictment and pushing it to its limits. If Trump killed someone or engaged in a massive Ponzi scheme - throw away the key. But these are BS charges that real responsible prosecutors wouldn’t bring.
In politics once one side comes up with a novel idea to screw the other side it is applied to them as soon as they lose power. (See the history of special prosecutor).
So many people have already suffered grave injustice under Trump. None of them have deserved it as much as Comey, whose flipping of the 2016 election is every bit as clear and indisputable as Ralph Nader’s in 2000. So let the arrogant, self-important giant rot in prison. I hope the next president doesn’t pardon his ass.
this type of vindictive unproductive thinking is exactly what the piece is trying to warn against. this type of retribution for perceived slights never stops, it just continues until we're all dead.
Eh. This is a pretty different thing from that. Comey is not a political enemy, he's just a guy who did something really fucking shitty for selfish reasons and likely has bad karma for it. I don't want ANYBODY to be unjusty prosecuted. But, acknowledging that people will be, he's one of the first I'd volunteer.
And Comey isn't a partisan figure. Everybody hates him (although I'm sure he will gain a lot of center-left admiration during the coming process, just for being on the receiving end of Trump thuggery.)
Does he deserve this? No, not really. Not at all. But compared to somebody like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, or Khalil Mohammed, or tens of thousands of others, he absolutely does, and there aren't enough tears in the country to bother shedding any for that guy. His utility is as a high profile example of the Trump DOJ's lawlessness. But I don't give a flying fuck what actually happens to him personally. (Though like I said, all things being equal, my strong preference is that people who haven't committed crimes not be prosecuted for or convicted of them.)
then we shouldn't be prosecuting him. I don't care if everybody hates him. In fact that's more of a reason to NOT prosecute him.
I'm not sure why you brought up these guys and I'm going to respond to your inevitable histrionics but Garcia and Mohammed don't want to be here, are not US citizens, and hate the country. And Garcia came here illegally - he was not invited. You don't reward bad and illegal behavior. Kick them both out. It's what they want and what they deserve and it's also what the majority of Americans want.
No SHIT we shouldn't be prosecuting him. I really don't think you understand my point at all.
My point is pretty much "James Comey sucks, and fuck him." There's plenty of people to point out this prosecution is an abomination.
(Also I'll accept Mohammed hates the country, I've heard what he has to say; I don't think people should be deported or labeled a "threat to the country" over things they say, unless they go way further than Mohammed did, but deporting him wasn't illegal. But I haven't seen a lick of fucking evidence that Abrego Garcia hates America, so I don't know what part of your ass you pulled that out from. They were both selectively targeted as well, to set "examples," and the administration hasn't even disputed that.)
"I really don't think you understand my point at all."
Yes, because you're doing an extremely poor job of making it.
"You know what? Screw him.
So many people have already suffered grave injustice under Trump. None of them have deserved it as much as Comey, whose flipping of the 2016 election is every bit as clear and indisputable as Ralph Nader’s in 2000."
"So let the arrogant, self-important giant rot in prison. "
"But, acknowledging that people will be, he's one of the first I'd volunteer."
""James Comey sucks, and fuck him.""
There is no way to say this without being rude. It's possible you're just a poor communicator or at the very least are having an off day.
Yes, I'm being rude, because I'm talking about a guy I think sucks. I'm a fine communicator, I think you're just doing a pretty bad job listening and trying to find something in there that I'm not saying. What I am saying is extremely straightforward and, yes, rude. [Although maybe not as rude as accusing a random guy of "hating America" because Trump targeted him.]
Usually I have more substantive things to say. This is vibes and you can take them or leave them. Have a good one.
Mmmm... on the surface, it might look like that. But actually the Buchanan votes are just more evidence that Florida didn't want Bush.
The Buchanan votes were mostly intended for Gore. Bad ballot design led to the famously Holocaust-denying Buchanan having his best performance in the country in the district with the most Holocaust survivors in the country. But nah, I'm sure all those traumatized Jewish grannies just really loved The 700 Club.
No one in the United States, including our president, is above the rule of law. No one except, perhaps according to many, illegal immigrants. Why do so many believe that group to be beyond the rule of law? I do believe that like almost all of our laws except those banning murder illegal immigration should be subject to a statute of limitations. Anyone who has lived a crime free life here for seven years should be permitted to stay (without the benefits of citizenship) so long as they remain innocent of serious crimes. This proposal would guarantee that no illegal immigrant would ever gain the protection or privileges of citizenship and could always be deported for serious misconduct. The current situation is untenable and is likely to put the open borders people back in power. That would be a true disaster. This approach is the only solution to the chaos that our current approach is causing to our country.
David - you are pretty balanced and reasonable, other than the glaring omission of explaining what 32 felonies Trump was in fact guilty of. I believe Bragg's concoction was that each "mis-labeled" payment to the horse face woman somehow violated NY state's election interference laws which, according to NY state, can be a felony, even though the payments happened after the election. But, maybe I an misremembering and too lazy to look it up. I would think we'd be hearing a decision on Trump's appeal by now, but I digress.
This game of punch/no punch backs the democrats have been playing for almost 10 years has become extremely tiresome. And it turns out “no one is above the law” might just be a boomerang, mate!
It's funny listening to this author/clown write Trump totally did what he did, while acknowledging he maybe/probably shouldn't have been charged for it. I read that indictment. It charged him with lying on his company's check register. Doesn’t say he gave it to anyone else or asked anyone else to rely on those entries. Ask anyone who supports Trump's conviction to explain to you the criminal conduct he engaged in that we're trying to deter. Don't let them quote the statute. Make them explain the behavior engaged in that he should go to jail for. Then enjoy!
When a law needs to be passed or amended to charge a specific person, that’s an unconstitutional bogus prosecution. Guilt or innocence is immaterial after that. As was the case in Trumps 34 felony convictions.
At worst it's a payoff that's not tax deductible. IRS isn't going to criminally charge you for that. If they catch it, they add it back to income. Every single person who owns a business has lied on the check register. Nobody has squeaky clean books
If they could have charged tax fraud they most certainly would have.
That the *democrats* have been playing?
Sorry, Democrats. Yah, this constant game of lawfare the Democrats have been playing since 2016.
Trump was chanting "Lock Her Up" before Dems tried prosecuting Trump for any of his genuine misdeeds.
So in your mind, chants of “lock her up” which they didn’t, are the same thing as the very real and tangible lawfare Trump has lived through for 9 years. Uh huh. Got it.
I'm saying that prosecuting someone for crimes they did is not lawfare.
Hillary Clinton mishandled classified data in a way that has a minimum 5-year sentence even for far smaller-scale offenses than hers, and she actively covered it up.
Meanwhile, perverting the law to absurdity to invent a crime absolutely is lawfare.
Well, I for one am looking forward to Hillary answering for the whole Russiagate hoax in front of a judge. Unless you've had your head in the sand, turns out all of that Russia collusion BS was just that, and she kicked it all off.
Yes. The democrats.
Your repeated "Trump absolutely did what he was prosecuted for" is false and makes me think you don't fully appreciate the extent of the problems with Bragg's case.
He wasn't prosecuted for mislabeling the payment, but specifically mislabeling in an effort to commit another crime. But there was no other crime. The judge (a Democrat) absurdly decided that the prosecution didn't have to prove or even really argue what the second crime was. This is already a serious violation of Due Process and alone should have sunk the case. Bragg vaguely suggested (in his closing argument) Trump violated campaign finance laws, but 1) federal prosecutors say no he didn't and 2) even if he had, campaign finance is exclusive to federal jurisdiction and has no business being litigated in a state courthouse.
Bragg's theory was so perverse and unconstitutional that it honestly wouldn't matter if Trump had done what they allege. But given he clearly did not mislabel the payment in order to commit a different crime, and the prosecution never had to prove he did, he literally did not do what they prosecuted him for.
As a fun extra, the Clinton campaign did something similar to, if slightly worse than, what Trump was accused of. It labeled its funding toward the Steele Dossier's opposition research as—wait for it—a legal expense! Only this wasn't in some internal corporate record but in official expense filings to the Federal Election Committee. That definitely IS a violation of campaign finance law. The result? Clinton's campaign paid a $40,000 fine. Number of felonies charged? Zero.
Meanwhile Trump gets to be called "convicted felon" on TV. That was, after all, the whole point.
Not only was there no second crime, but the theoretical second crime would have made a mockery of the downfall of John Edwards, who was convicted for using campaign funds to fund his affair. In this case, the "crime" would have been that Donald Trump DIDN'T use campaign funds, with the court arguing that he should have.
It doesn’t matter what it was, as that’s not what prosecutors sought his conviction on; they substantiated that he’d made false filings to conceal a crime and achieved conviction on those grounds
It doesn’t matter what crime Trump was concealing, only that they proved he was concealing one which they did
So your explanation is that Trump did the conduct, and the conduct is criminal, and New York has a controlling statute under which he could be tried, but none of that counts because reasons
Because due process, yes.
The process he was due was a trial, which he had, faggot
You missed the part about the trial being fair, cockgoblin. That is also due process.
It was fair - Trump was not prevented from making his defense; the issue he couldn’t surmount is that he factually committed the act barred by state law
Wrong. A trial in which the prosecution isn't required to even explain what crime they suspect the defendant of is definitionally unfair. Likewise one in which the defendant can be accused of a misdemeanor crime and end up convicted of multiple felonies, especially when those felonies would not be in the court's jurisdiction anyway. Likewise one which is presided over by a partisan opponent of the defendant. All of those pertained to this. I would go further and say that even when the defendant is guilty, a trial for a crime that no other person would ever be prosecuted for, even though other people were known at the time to have done the same thing and worse, is definitionally unfair too. Trump was apparently guilty of a misdemeanor (not any BS undefined felonies) but it was still worse from the point of view of justice to have prosecuted him, and only him, whilst letting Clinton and any other politicians who has ever misfiled accounts get away with it, than it would be for that particular law to fall into disuse.
Russiagate was a deliberate deep state attempt to hobble Trump's first term. Comey was part of that and accountability is in order. The lawfare that followed Biden's election was a deliberate deep state attempt to prevent Trump's second term. The people involved in that need to be held accountable as well.
The irony is that if the deep state had just kept hands off, then Trump would have retired by now. Instead he's hell bent on dismantling the leviathan and restoring accountability to a system that has forgotten the meaning of the word. That's long overdue.
Dick Minnis
removingthecataract.substack.com
I dream of the world where Trump retired January 20, 2025 and is a full time golf-hacker fading from Our Memory.
I don't find it "improper" at all. Clowns like Comey and every other intelligence head like Bennan lie constantly and never face consequences. Gotta start somewhere.
this type of vindictive unproductive thinking is exactly what the piece is trying to warn against. this type of retribution for perceived slights never stops, it just continues until we're all dead.
Bet you never said anything like that when Trump was being indicted.
Line up! In a circle!
exactly.
Trump supporter here. I disagree with going after Comey for much the reasons you just mentioned.
I also disagreed with going after Trump for the nonsense 'let's turn a single misdemeanor into 32 felonies" circus that has led us to this.
But on another note:
"I get that nobody thought he would win again"
Bruh really? Lots of people thought he would win again. He didn't even have to debate in the primaries which was telling.
But then Biden was so clearly very old and we were very clearly being lied to about it.
And then the debate.
And then Trump got shot and instead of being a pussy loser - he stood up and yelled "Fight Fight Fight!"
And then Kamala did..... nothing. She was useless. And "i can't think of a single thing" put the nail in the coffin.
it was clear as early as mid 2023 that he was very likely to win again.
The Case for Trump - 2024
It's been a lifetime of watching the well connected manipulate the system. Perhaps the only thing that will change that is prosecutions and convictions.
In the bigger picture, the underlying problem has caused much, including the corruption of capitalism that is behind many of the troubles faced now by the citizenry.
It also is at the foot of the vast mistrust we have of our institutions. Just watch commercials or other PR to see the ever-present outright lying we are expected to believe.
"We care about you" is such BS when it's obvious they only care about themselves.
This is the root of the performative culture in the world.
The real problem is scope and severity. The Trump indictment was BS. It took a highly technical violation and created a felony fraud. Comey is taking a factually shaky and almost certainly legally insufficient indictment and pushing it to its limits. If Trump killed someone or engaged in a massive Ponzi scheme - throw away the key. But these are BS charges that real responsible prosecutors wouldn’t bring.
My edit for the story. “Payback is hell”.
In politics once one side comes up with a novel idea to screw the other side it is applied to them as soon as they lose power. (See the history of special prosecutor).
None of this is about the rule of law.
"In the news today, the United States is up 3/8ths of a banana . . ."
You know what? Screw him.
So many people have already suffered grave injustice under Trump. None of them have deserved it as much as Comey, whose flipping of the 2016 election is every bit as clear and indisputable as Ralph Nader’s in 2000. So let the arrogant, self-important giant rot in prison. I hope the next president doesn’t pardon his ass.
this type of vindictive unproductive thinking is exactly what the piece is trying to warn against. this type of retribution for perceived slights never stops, it just continues until we're all dead.
Eh. This is a pretty different thing from that. Comey is not a political enemy, he's just a guy who did something really fucking shitty for selfish reasons and likely has bad karma for it. I don't want ANYBODY to be unjusty prosecuted. But, acknowledging that people will be, he's one of the first I'd volunteer.
And Comey isn't a partisan figure. Everybody hates him (although I'm sure he will gain a lot of center-left admiration during the coming process, just for being on the receiving end of Trump thuggery.)
Does he deserve this? No, not really. Not at all. But compared to somebody like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, or Khalil Mohammed, or tens of thousands of others, he absolutely does, and there aren't enough tears in the country to bother shedding any for that guy. His utility is as a high profile example of the Trump DOJ's lawlessness. But I don't give a flying fuck what actually happens to him personally. (Though like I said, all things being equal, my strong preference is that people who haven't committed crimes not be prosecuted for or convicted of them.)
"Does he deserve it? No, not really."
then we shouldn't be prosecuting him. I don't care if everybody hates him. In fact that's more of a reason to NOT prosecute him.
I'm not sure why you brought up these guys and I'm going to respond to your inevitable histrionics but Garcia and Mohammed don't want to be here, are not US citizens, and hate the country. And Garcia came here illegally - he was not invited. You don't reward bad and illegal behavior. Kick them both out. It's what they want and what they deserve and it's also what the majority of Americans want.
No SHIT we shouldn't be prosecuting him. I really don't think you understand my point at all.
My point is pretty much "James Comey sucks, and fuck him." There's plenty of people to point out this prosecution is an abomination.
(Also I'll accept Mohammed hates the country, I've heard what he has to say; I don't think people should be deported or labeled a "threat to the country" over things they say, unless they go way further than Mohammed did, but deporting him wasn't illegal. But I haven't seen a lick of fucking evidence that Abrego Garcia hates America, so I don't know what part of your ass you pulled that out from. They were both selectively targeted as well, to set "examples," and the administration hasn't even disputed that.)
"I really don't think you understand my point at all."
Yes, because you're doing an extremely poor job of making it.
"You know what? Screw him.
So many people have already suffered grave injustice under Trump. None of them have deserved it as much as Comey, whose flipping of the 2016 election is every bit as clear and indisputable as Ralph Nader’s in 2000."
"So let the arrogant, self-important giant rot in prison. "
"But, acknowledging that people will be, he's one of the first I'd volunteer."
""James Comey sucks, and fuck him.""
There is no way to say this without being rude. It's possible you're just a poor communicator or at the very least are having an off day.
Yes, I'm being rude, because I'm talking about a guy I think sucks. I'm a fine communicator, I think you're just doing a pretty bad job listening and trying to find something in there that I'm not saying. What I am saying is extremely straightforward and, yes, rude. [Although maybe not as rude as accusing a random guy of "hating America" because Trump targeted him.]
Usually I have more substantive things to say. This is vibes and you can take them or leave them. Have a good one.
In 2000, Pat Buchanan received almost as many votes as Nader. Under a ranked voting system, most of Pat's votes would have gone to Bush the Junior.
Nader and Buchanan canceled each other out.
Mmmm... on the surface, it might look like that. But actually the Buchanan votes are just more evidence that Florida didn't want Bush.
The Buchanan votes were mostly intended for Gore. Bad ballot design led to the famously Holocaust-denying Buchanan having his best performance in the country in the district with the most Holocaust survivors in the country. But nah, I'm sure all those traumatized Jewish grannies just really loved The 700 Club.
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/butterfly-did-it-aberrant-vote-buchanan-palm-beach-county-florida
Endless myths. The Buchanan voters knew who they were.
No one in the United States, including our president, is above the rule of law. No one except, perhaps according to many, illegal immigrants. Why do so many believe that group to be beyond the rule of law? I do believe that like almost all of our laws except those banning murder illegal immigration should be subject to a statute of limitations. Anyone who has lived a crime free life here for seven years should be permitted to stay (without the benefits of citizenship) so long as they remain innocent of serious crimes. This proposal would guarantee that no illegal immigrant would ever gain the protection or privileges of citizenship and could always be deported for serious misconduct. The current situation is untenable and is likely to put the open borders people back in power. That would be a true disaster. This approach is the only solution to the chaos that our current approach is causing to our country.
Wow your comments section is pretty unbearable.
David - you are pretty balanced and reasonable, other than the glaring omission of explaining what 32 felonies Trump was in fact guilty of. I believe Bragg's concoction was that each "mis-labeled" payment to the horse face woman somehow violated NY state's election interference laws which, according to NY state, can be a felony, even though the payments happened after the election. But, maybe I an misremembering and too lazy to look it up. I would think we'd be hearing a decision on Trump's appeal by now, but I digress.
As for Comey, the Bee is more succinct:
https://babylonbee.com/news/nation-not-really-clear-why-comey-being-indicted-but-pretty-sure-he-deserves-it
https://babylonbee.com/news/james-comey-produces-letter-signed-by-51-former-intelligence-officials-saying-hes-totally-innocent
If it's any consolation, I am signing up as a paid subscriber so I can be a PITA commentor on future posts.
But on the positive side, "the Years of Lead" had Bunga-Bunga parties.