Breaking 1-06-21: MAGA terrorist attack on Capitol

Gotta make a mention of MY MONEY...............well, actually you're campaigning for your minions to give you money, plus if you would stop with so many frivolous lawsuits you may save some cash.

 

Depends on jury selection. Can Trumps lawyers sneak a die hard Trump supporter onto the jury? Do they get stuck with 12 people with TDS? Can they manage to find 12 people with no preconceived notions about Trump or any of the allegations? Tough to say.

Presumably they could find dozens or even hundreds of witnesses to testify that Trump expressed to them his belief that he had won the election. One exception to the hearsay rule under the federal rules of evidence is a statement offered to prove the then existing state of mind of the declarant.

Whatever happens, I expect it to be a shitshow. Somehow, Trump always seems to hire terrible legal representation that cannot effectively comply with even simple things like establishing standing or making timely filings.

 

Would any die hard MAGA cultist on any jury ever really listen to evidence with an open mind? I don't know if someone so brainwashed by Trump's lies could really open their eyes to the truth, even if hard evidence is presented in front of them.

 

You might be surprised at how much jurors set aside their prior convictions. They are highly unpredictable and can latch onto the weirdest things during a trial to make their decisions. On the other hand, there are some jurors who have agendas (agendas which they hide from court and counsel) who don't give a rat's ass what evidence was presented at trial.

 

As I recall, you were responding to someone who was saying his intent didn't matter because he took these actions. I appreciate you keeping us grounded in what the law would require be proved.

I think the fake electors will be his stumbling block. Even if he could convince people he really thought the election was rigged, that would still only justify the pursuit of correct counts. Maybe there's doubt around telling Raffensberger to find votes. But, he directed the organization and submission of alternate slates of electors that would choose him even though he never managed to create an alternate vote count that would affirmatively make him the winner in those states. Even if he was right that there was massive fraud, when he's rebuffed 30+ times in recounts, audits, and lawsuits and he has nothing on which to base his alternate slate of electors on, how could anyone think he made those alternate slates in good faith? He doesn't have an alternate vote count to point at and say 'these electors are appointed according to this count.'

The effect on Trumpworld will be that a jury decision to convict will look to them to be utterly ridiculous and unjust and just more proof that the Deep State has corrupted every nook and cranny of the federal government.

Freudian slip?

 

I mean it's all in the indictment so I don't get @StupidMoniker's position that Trump believing the election was stolen gets him off the hook for trying to commit election fraud.

 

Nothing made me want to follow the law more in my life than serving on a jury and seeing how some of the other jurors treated the process.

 

witnesses to state trump said he thought he won - I suppose the defense could hand pick a few more credible/less damaged/Trumpy folks who could say that, but seems like that not too different from his stump speeches in which he said to thousands that he thought he won the election.

trump is so polarizing that jury selection will be an exercise in deception. There are gonna be anti trumpers and MAGA who will do whatever they can to get on the jury. Some people will honestly believe they can be open minded to the evidence, even if they carry predisposition about trump. But that will be damn hard,

The downside to being on the jury is that the trial will take forever. The upside is that you’re part of history and can probably get a book or interviews about it. Getting a true clean jury will be damn near impossible.

 

I think you guys are talking past each other.

Seems you are saying that there is no way anyone believes that trump actually believed the election was stolen given all the facts pled in the indict,ent. Or that there is no way Trump actually believed the big lie.


Stupid moniker is saying that, under the law, if a jury were to accept as true that Trump actually believed the big lie, no conviction. That’s a statement of the law, not what is factually true or not true, or why a jury would conclude as to what trump actually believed

 

The first part can be true generally speaking. I’ve done dozens of focus groups, mock jury exercises and actual jury trials. Your average juror isn’t that bright, doesn’t have that much education, and can definitely focus on weird things.

I once had a trial team buy suits and court clothing from local stores so they wouldn’t look as much like “big city” lawyers. I made our lead trial lawyer buy Walgreens reading glasses. After trial, they said our legal team seemed a little snooty baaed on how they spoke (ie a few too many big words slipped out), but they looked like decent people for big city lawyers.

But given the profile of MAGA trumpers - conspiracy theory believing, anti facts, anti science, anti education, gullible dolts with low education - the second part is virtually certain for MAGA on the panel.

 

Another possible defense of the indefensible... "presidential immunity".

 

I don’t pretend to understand the law surrounding this issue, but it is hard for me to imagine that even a conservative SCOTUS would rule that a sitting president is immune from criminal liability. The legal notion makes no sense.

Also, if this were raised in the context of a conviction by a jury (rather than the issue being certified to scotus before trial somehow), I think you are talking about mass protests that would make the George Floyd summer look like a picnic.

 

I believe this was from the congressional hearings on January 6... and I would guess her testimony would also be used in this trial.

 

Trump plans to use charges to revisit 2020 election, a fraught topic for GOP

Strategists in both parties agree that having Trump talking about election fraud and Jan. 6 hurts Republicans

Former president Donald Trump and some of his legal advisers see an upside to the latest criminal case against him: He can use his upcoming trial to further argue his false claims of a stolen 2020 election.

The looming courtroom showdown is poised to push his insistence that election fraud occurred in 2020 toward the center of the 2024 presidential campaign, a dismaying prospect for Republicans and some of Trump’s advisers who have urged him to stop belaboring that subject. Trump’s defense team has signaled that they’ll focus on rebutting prosecutors’ allegations that Trump knew his fraud claims were false.

The strategy offers a small consolation to the former president, who spent Thursday suffering once again from the small indignities faced by indicted federal defendants. He was arraigned after roughly an hour-long wait inside a Washington courthouse just blocks from the site of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Trump spent the time occasionally rapping his knuckles on a table.

Trump has said that he wanted to subpoena people about the 2020 election and argue that he won, as prosecutors allege that he knew he lost and that his claims were false, according to people close to the former president, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

But the prospect of revisiting the validity of the last election has delighted Democrats, on top of causing consternation among Republican strategists, who see other, much more politically fruitful focal points for 2024. There are mountains of evidence — provided by top leaders in his campaign and government — that the election was not stolen from Trump, and the indictment paints a damning portrait of a man who was frequently informed of that reality.

By the time Trump left Washington on Thursday, after pleading not guilty, rain had started, and he left his car and was handed an umbrella by body man and co-defendant Waltine “Walt” Nauta, who then stood unprotected from the weather. Trump did not give a long, defiant speech as he did after the previous indictment, and he ignored shouted questions from reporters gathered on the tarmac.

“This is not the place that I left,” he said.

He staged no nighttime rallies after Thursday’s court appearance, breaking from a tradition he began with defiant speeches after his recent arraignments in New York and Miami on charges related to hush money payments and the mishandling of classified documents.

Trump’s campaign team was miffed by a lack of traffic support from local police after he arrived in Washington, forcing the motorcade to weave through rush-hour traffic. Other motorists attempted to change lanes between the motorcade, showing less deference than typical for an average funeral procession. The welcome from onlookers at the courthouse was occasionally hostile, with several middle fingers from bikers and spectators along the highway from the airport. There was a Biden flag on a corner near the courthouse.

The former president said it was a “very sad day for America.” His lawyers have vowed to aggressively fight the charges that he engaged in criminal schemes in an attempt to overturn the election results.

“We will re-litigate every single issue in the 2020 election in the context of this litigation,” Trump attorney John Lauro said Tuesday during an interview with Fox News. “It gives President Trump an opportunity that he has never had before, which is to have subpoena power since Jan. 6 in a way that can be exercised in federal court.”

Leaders in both parties agree that revisiting those topics hurt the GOP among moderates and swing voters in last year’s midterms and could continue to sandbag Trump and the rest of the ticket.

“To the extent that it forces him to talk about the past rather than the future, it is not helpful to his campaign,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster.

Michael Duncan, a Republican digital consultant aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said in a Thursday episode of his “Ruthless” podcast that a focus on election denial in the midterms lost Republicans control of the U.S. Senate. “If this is the conversation we’re going to have over the next year and a half, it’s going to be tough for Republicans, particularly in suburban areas,” he said.

Democrats, who are preparing to run an incumbent president with low approval ratings, are even more blunt.

“Swing voters in a general election are not looking for celebration of an attempt to overturn an election and overthrow a government,” said Geoff Garin, a prominent Democratic pollster who has worked on the past three presidential races. “Swing voters and voters generally take our democracy very seriously and don’t want their votes to be made irrelevant by politicians that want to overturn elections.”

After the midterms, advisers succeeded in steering Trump away from talking about the “stolen” election, instead channeling that energy into a more forward-looking message casting the prosecutions as the latest step in a continuous conspiracy of “election interference” against him. As the charges piled up, however, Trump has resumed peppering his speeches with repeated false claims about the 2020 election and Jan. 6.

But that strategy has changed somewhat since then. Another Trump attorney, Alina Habba, said Thursday outside the courtroom that Trump’s defense team would show at trial that the former president believed that there were problems with the 2020 results, though his attorneys will not have to prove that the election result was fraudulent.

“The truth is, as an American, there were questions that he had regarding the election integrity,” she said. “We’ve seen documents come out, we’ve seen documentaries come out showing that there were issues with the election. When somebody wants to say that the 2020 election was perfect and that President Trump has no right to object to it, we’ve got to go show him all the facts, and there’s a lot of facts to show.”​

 

Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing and people cannot cope with a certain guy sitting behind a desk.

The President means very little. We have a nursing home escapee running the show. We all know he has no real power and the moment he thinks he does is the moment he falls down the stairs with no cameras in the White House.

 

First there is a lot of evidence that Trump knew he lost including from his own AG. Second though your argument that Trump didn't believe he lost that would be accepting his words at face value. So what is? Can someone be convicted even if they legitimately believe something to be true or not?

Yes he did say once, almost as an afterthough to be peaceful. He also told people to "Fight like Hell" too. Also Im pretty sure the permit didn't cover the US Capitol. We have evidence of Trump dawdling for hours when even Kevin McCarthy was calling him for help.

I do enjoy how many claim they aren't defending Trump and then then offer a defense of Trump.
[edit]I might be being a bit unfair to you as I don't believe you actually do want to defend Trump and are arguing in good faith. Practically though you are arguing a defense of Trump and one that his lawyers are already presenting. I don't think it is nearly as strong as you or other presenting it think it is.

 

No I'm saying it's irrelevant what he believed in terms of the election - him trying to fix the result is a crime regardless since he broke laws to do that.

 

Building a timeline from Trump's legal troubles will likely fill everyday on the calendar, no?

 

Using this example, Trump didn't try to pass off a baseball card he believed was real. He received a baseball card he may have believed was fake then forged a new card and tried to sell that one as real. He obviously knew his card was fake since he created it.

Again believing in one fraud doesn't allow you to engage in a completely different fraud. And it's going to be hard to argue they didn't intend to commit forgery.That Trump believed the election was stolen and saying so is free speech are red hearings to enrage the base. It's completely irrelevant to the fact that he created a fake set of electors.

 

This is Trump's defense and what we are hearing from many here that intent / Trump's words or belief is what matters so this is a prosecution of speech. It's not. It is about actions. The indictment addresses this.