The Trump Investigation(s) Thread

[LordMortis]

I'll have nightmares about that face stained in iodine look tonight. It looks like attempting disease treatment going poorly, to say nothing of the missing neck.


This time!!!! Is all I can hear when it come to Trump. The only this time I can hope for is keeping his breed out of office or that some malady kills him or better yet incapacitates him so bad he can barely communicate and people can make fun of his disability and misery and even those hopes are low.

[Grifman]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/04/politics ... index.html

News of grand jury subpoenas for former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and former deputy counsel Patrick Philbin, the latter of which was first reported by CNN, is the latest sign that department investigators are reaching inside Trump's inner circle during his final days in the White House.

[malchior]

So....the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago. Crazy stuff.

Edit: Bonus points because Trump is absolutely whining about it.

[Isgrimnur]

Should have done it while he was on stage at CPAC.

[malchior]

The talk is this isn't 1/6 related but instead looking for classified documents that they think he might he have taken.

Meanwhile Fox News is talking about Hunter Biden, Hillary emails, etc. It is completely unhinged shit. I watched a guest talk about how Biden can't put on his sports coat and that the FBI is the military arm of the Democrats. I get this is why the DOJ is afraid of pursuing Trump because these people are absolutely nuts. The shit they are broadcasting right now is the type of shit that caused the riot at the Capitol.

This was earlier. When last I saw they put on Lara Trump to rile up the base with dangerous rhetoric.

[malchior]

I concur. A lot of what I heard tonight is a half hair from direct calls for violence.

[Kraken]

Someone on CNN said they moved today because the DOJ has internal guidance prohibiting such actions within 90 days of an election (something something Comey and her emails), and today was day 91.

We know that trump removed 15 cartons of records and mementos from the WH to Mary Largo, and the National Archives isn't happy about it. We don't know if this is a fishing expedition or if they're looking for something in particular.

[Smoove_B]

Huh. That's interesting. I figured maybe it was a secret reference to Nixon resigning (8/8/74)

[malchior]

It's hard to believe they raided a man who just buried his ex-wife at his golf course.

[LawBeefaroni]

Huh. That's interesting. I figured maybe it was a secret reference to Nixon resigning (8/8/74)

First night game at Wrigley. 8/8/88.

[Skinypupy]

Ok, that’s funny.

[Unagi]

Huh. That's interesting. I figured maybe it was a secret reference to Nixon resigning (8/8/74)

First night game at Wrigley. 8/8/88.

USSR establishes a communist government in North Korea (8/8/45)
1st national march of Ku Klux Klan in Washington, D.C. (8/8/25)
US Congress unanimously chooses the dollar as the monetary unit for the United States of America (8/8/1786)

or perhaps the most analogous :

Venetian senate examines Galileo Galilei's telescope (8/8/1609)

[malchior]

[Smoove_B]

I'm beginning to think they want violence.

[malchior]

This is amazingly irresponsible. There is a good chance this guy will be Speaker of the House soon enough and this is rich coming from a Republican.

[Defiant]

Look who wants to defund law enforcement now?

[Skinypupy]

A postscript to Fed’s good thread on the raid.

[Zaxxon]

[Daehawk]

It's hard to believe they raided a man who just buried his ex-wife at his golf course.

hahahahahahahaha!

[Skinypupy]

Boy, the "law and order" and "back the blue" crowd is sure having some big feelings about laws, orders, and blues today.

Two things that are standing out to me this morning:

1. While all the carnival barkers are doing their usual barking, the people who hold the actual power (namely Pelosi & McConnell) have remained noticeably silent. I assume they'll say something at some point, will be very interesting to see what that will be.

2. Trump has both the search warrant and the exact inventory of what was taken from MAL. If this is truly the "nothingburger" that he claims, he could prove that at any time. He won't, of course, because a) it's not a nothingburger and b) he would lose some of the martyr status that I'm sure is absolutely raking the $$ from the deplorables today.

[Scraper]

Boy, the "law and order" and "back the blue" crowd is sure having some big feelings about laws, orders, and blues today.

Two things that are standing out to me this morning:

1. While all the carnival barkers are doing their usual barking, the people who hold the actual power (namely Pelosi & McConnell) have remained noticeably silent. I assume they'll say something at some point, will be very interesting to see what that will be.

2. Trump has both the search warrant and the exact inventory of what was taken from MAL. If this is truly the "nothingburger" that he claims, he could prove that at any time. He won't, of course, because a) it's not a nothingburger and b) he would lose some of the martyr status that I'm sure is absolutely raking the $$ from the deplorables today.

It's only a matter of time before the search warrant affidavit gets released. When it does that's when we'll know exactly what they were looking for and what crimes they suspect to have been committed. The common thought is that it's all about the 15 boxes of WH documents. BUT if they find other stuff in a plain site relevant to January 6th, they could use that against him as well. Say info about the 7.5 missing hours on is activity log that day. Trump is a conman who has always been able to outspend and delay his opponents. He won't be able to outspend the DOJ.

[malchior]

What we don't know is the DOJ's appetite to actually do something. Meaning this was more than has ever happened but if the purpose was to recover documents and they were recovered? That could just be all that happens. And we'll be stuck listening to them bleat about how this was another witch hunt.

[Daehawk]

My hope is he runs out of time. As he is falling from dying maybe he'll hit the gas on the stove or something and take his oddspring with them at a big party. ...and thats not a typo of offspring

[malchior]

My hope is he runs out of time. As he is falling from dying maybe he'll hit the gas on the stove or something and take his oddspring with them at a big party. ...and thats not a typo of offspring

Him dropping dead would be great but it probably won't change the trajectory this nation is on. The political problem is way past him at this point. Dark times seem inevitable.

[Defiant]

[Zaxxon]

My hope is he runs out of time. As he is falling from dying maybe he'll hit the gas on the stove or something and take his oddspring with them at a big party. ...and thats not a typo of offspring

Him dropping dead would be great but it probably won't change the trajectory this nation is on. The political problem is way past him at this point. Dark times seem inevitable.

Yeah, agreed. It's worth noting that while Trump is still the MAGA focus, DeSantis is right there in the wings, ready to continue the same shit but with perhaps slightly more competence.

[Scraper]

What we don't know is the DOJ's appetite to actually do something. Meaning this was more than has ever happened but if the purpose was to recover documents and they were recovered? That could just be all that happens. And we'll be stuck listening to them bleat about how this was another witch hunt.

The DOJ wouldn't go to a Federal Judge and ask for a search warrant for the Ex-President's residence if they weren't willing to prosecute. They have to allege that a crime has been committed in order to get the warrant approved and the Judge has to find probable cause as to the crime as well. This is not just an attempt to "recover documents". I suspect the DOJ knows a lot more than they are letting on. Remember for the past year they have been getting and serving search warrants on various Trump cronies, including the search on Eastman's office months ago.

As Ken over at Pophat would say "the wheels of Justice grind slowly, but they do grind".

[malchior]

What worries me is that the reaction to the FBI raid was profoundly dangerous. We saw leaders screaming things they knew were irresponsible, making threats of retribution, in support of someone they KNOW is a criminal. This isn't some passing fad. We're in a downward spiral and unless miracles happen at the ballot box we've got big problems.

[malchior]

What we don't know is the DOJ's appetite to actually do something. Meaning this was more than has ever happened but if the purpose was to recover documents and they were recovered? That could just be all that happens. And we'll be stuck listening to them bleat about how this was another witch hunt.

The DOJ wouldn't go to a Federal Judge and ask for a search warrant for the Ex-President's residence if they weren't willing to prosecute. They have to allege that a crime has been committed in order to get the warrant approved and the Judge has to find probable cause as to the crime as well. This is not just an attempt to "recover documents".

Technically correct on the alleging a crime aspect. However, I have seen several experts say and write that the Presidential Records Act has largely never been prosecuted. Also, the threat of prosecution has been used this way to recover documents/records that are deemed extremely critical to national security in the past. Most of the time it is a lower level person who surrenders them so this does indeed go well beyond that.

I suspect the DOJ knows a lot more than they are letting on. Remember for the past year they have been getting and serving search warrants on various Trump cronies, including the search on Eastman's office months ago.

It's all possible but we're in unknown waters here. Predicting anything with certainty is a fool's errand.

As Ken over at Pophat would say "the wheels of Justice grind slowly, but they do grind".

I'd love to believe it but we have tons of evidence that the wheels of justice don't grind against everybody. Especially Trump. I'll be ecstatic to be proved wrong here but I believe I have a reasonably solid foundation to be pretty skeptical. This is probably the most serious and closest to be sure though but how many times have we gone around here?

[LordMortis]

As Ken over at Pophat would say "the wheels of Justice grind slowly, but they do grind".

They've broken me. All I can do is think This time... in an impudent sarcastic tone.

[pr0ner]

Apparently you're supposed to be "in the know" about how Jesse Kelly tweets to understand what he really means by saying something like that, or something along those lines.

[El Guapo]

What I'm trying to understand is - I can see a variety of reasons why Trump would remove classified documents from the White House. But why would he keep them rather than destroying them?

[Kurth]

What I'm trying to understand is - I can see a variety of reasons why Trump would remove classified documents from the White House. But why would he keep them rather than destroying them?

So he can autograph them and sell them on eBay?

[El Guapo]

What worries me is that the reaction to the FBI raid was profoundly dangerous. We saw leaders screaming things they knew were irresponsible, making threats of retribution, in support of someone they KNOW is a criminal. This isn't some passing fad. We're in a downward spiral and unless miracles happen at the ballot box we've got big problems.

Yeah, it's scary. One thing I will say is that this greatly improves the odds of Garland having the stones to actually prosecute Trump. And that would be an unbelievable shitshow, there is no way out of this mess that doesn't involve a shitshow, and I'd rather be going through this on this kind of terrain than waiting until 2024.

[Dramatist]

I know that everything is not out in the open. I know many of the extra MAGA Republicans in positions of power are in a tizzy and saying unhinged shit.

But the raid yesterday is nothing but good news to me. Trump may face some form of justice after all; and I’m here for it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Smoove_B]

What I'm trying to understand is - I can see a variety of reasons why Trump would remove classified documents from the White House. But why would he keep them rather than destroying them?

He's presumably had these since January of 2021. I know there were investigator out to Mar-a-lago a few months ago regarding the missing files, so why did they conduct the warrant search yesterday? To me it feels like this is much bigger than we are being told. Not just because of the timing between the June search and yesterday, but that it took 17+ months for the initial June visit to be conducted. Regardless, I hope we find out soon.

[Smoove_B]

How is this still a thing? How has this not been settled yet??

Breaking: The D.C. Court of Appeals has just said the House Ways and Means Committee can obtain Trump's tax returns from the IRS.

[LordMortis]

Leverage or stupidity or bragging rights? One or more of all three are not outside of the realm of possibility.

Edit, that was to the post before.

[Alefroth]

My hope is he runs out of time. As he is falling from dying maybe he'll hit the gas on the stove or something and take his oddspring with them at a big party. ...and thats not a typo of offspring

Him dropping dead would be great but it probably won't change the trajectory this nation is on. The political problem is way past him at this point. Dark times seem inevitable.

Yeah, agreed. It's worth noting that while Trump is still the MAGA focus, DeSantis is right there in the wings, ready to continue the same shit but with perhaps slightly more competence.

People literally worship Trump and I don't think DeSantis can maintain that level of devotion. That's at least a small improvement.

[Daehawk]

And I dont get any of it. I think Im too smart for that clique.