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

It's a deflection away from Trump towards Biden.

 

This was all intentional..... Trump started the whole plot as soon as he preemptively set the stage for election fraud in the months leading up to the election which was to 1) sow enough doubt and chaos for Trump to cling to power 2) do the same as point 1 except on the state level with state conservative state legislators.

Pretty scary folks still think won and he did nothing wrong, but that's how our the current environment is.... "don't trust THAT media, trust my media". Pretty sure big money interests have already infiltrated the "new media".... Anyone be surprise if Peter Thiel has been working with Joe Rogan and Musk to create their own message?

 

That would only the case if you were required to accept the claims of the defendant as true, you are not. Premeditated murder is a specific intent crime, it requires and intent to kill. That doesn't mean that you cannot get a conviction for premeditated murder because all the defendant has to do is claim he never intended to kill anyone.

If Trump actually believed that the results in certain states were the result of voter fraud, then the correct slate of electors would be the ones who supported the legitimately elected winner. If Trump actually believed that there were hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes (as he claimed in his call to the Georgia secretary of state) then of course he can tell the man to locate the fraudulent votes and throw them out. Why wouldn't that be the case? If you discovered massive election fraud, would you be required to just say, "Oh well, you got me this time. Shucks." Of course not. I expect that will be the defense. Whether or not a judge or jury believes that Trump believed he was the victim of voter fraud is the issue.

 

This was also true in 2020.

Since 2020, there have been two events that have shaped the 2022 election and will shape the 2024 election.

1. January 6th. The Election Was Stolen crowd, aka the MAGA True Believers, got Trump’s endorsement and got their asses handed to them by the electorate.
2. Roe got overturned. Suburban moms are now loyal Democrats. In case there was any doubt whatsoever, the Rs have doubled down and have supported nationwide abortion bans and contraception bans.

 

They have their subscription base to think about!

 

Yeah, Trump made it pretty obvious well before the election that he was instilling his voter fraud propaganda in case he lost. He was terrified of losing to Biden, and like the egomaniac and power monger he is, he had to have a plan B. Why do you think he pardoned his crook friends before the coup? They helped spread misinformation to incite his cult. I don't believe for one second that Trump the lying manipulator thought anything he was doing was legal. He knew damn well he lost. He had no evidence suggesting otherwise. He just thinks he's above the law. He always has!

 

DC has become such a **** hole country. People are saying. They come right up to Trump, crying, and say “Sir, DC is such a **** hole.”

 

Perhaps America isn’t as broken first thought…

 

So you basically think Trump best defense is an insanity plea?

 

When you hire hookers as lawyers what do you expect

 

LOL…

 

I know who he was referring to, but he has to know that his own reputation has been badly damaged by trump. Barr was drawn into trump's presidency by the offer of becoming the Attorney General of the United States for a second time. Barr held several positions in the George H. W. Bush administration, where he was quite influential. As Deputy Attorney General, he was head of the Office of Legal Counsel and, among other things, kept pushing for a higher rate of incarceration and tougher sentencing for federal crimes.

Ironically, while pushing for being "tougher on crime," he convinced President Bush to pardon 6 officials involved in Reagan's Iran-Contra Affair, which didn't make the President look good at all. Mr. Barr, in my opinion, has never been shy about talking out of both sides of his mouth, and did some very questionable things while working for Bush, eventually becoming Bush's Attorney General. We aren't here to discuss that, however.

Years later, when offered the same job by trump, Barr jumped at it. He quickly discovered that working for trump was vastly different than working for the courtly, but tough, George Bush, Sr. Boy, did he ever! trump assumed that Barr was someone who would do questionable heavy lifting for him, and trump knew his man.

I don't think Barr's reputation while working for trump has gotten off "easy" at all. In my opinion, it has been badly damaged. He's likely hoping that he'll be able to stay out of a courtroom during trump's upcoming trials. He shouldn't count on it, again, in my opinion. I think he'll be doing a lot of testifying, and he isn't going to enjoy it.

 

It has been badly damaged because one of the most staunch Republicans is now labeled a RINO. So I guess it is which side you are on. It is kind of like Liz Cheney. Dems forget Barr and Cheney are die-hard Republicans, not MAGA, but actual Republicans. Barr and Cheney have gained more respect with Dems, but a heck of a lot less with MAGA.

 

Dictionary such a partisan hack.

 

So you are saying that Trump can commit fraud because he thinks someone else committed fraud? Isn’t mens rea about whether he intended to commit the crime, not his justification for committing the crime.

 

And this is after he's been told by white house counsel among others that what he is attempting to do is illegal, and that there is no crime someone else has committed.

This attempt by Trumpworld to sort of crowdsource and test out defenses is so stupid, and only purpose is to confuse. However in the process it's just going to get a whole lot of Trumpers looking like idiots when the law and facts get presented.

If Trump had any defense it would be convincing the Supreme Court on appeal that these discussions were all essentially executive privileged conversations. And Trump's counsel is speaking out in the media about these conversations after being arraigned which is stupid because now its NOT privileged.

The fact is an executive branch does need to have the ability to have a safe space to float ideas.... some bad, or potentially illegal... then let counsel, and other advisors tell the president and other senior leaders that they can or cannot do said action, or cause/effects, etc. That's perfectly normal, and if early on Trump would have been smarter and more strategic he would have been able to float ideas like the 12th amendment, etc. without actually going into criminal territory. However, Trump being the idiot he is, didn't float ideas in an executive privileged way. There are so many random people not even in government coming into the picture as part of the scheme, and you have Trump being told something is illegal, and then telling Pence that he wants him to do it anyway.

There's just no way you can read both the indictment, and here the crowdsourced defenses the past 72 hours and walk away thinking that Trump world has ANY IDEA what the hell they are doing.

 

He has to intend to commit fraud. Intending to have the true outcome of the election recorded would not be fraud. It is about whether he was intending to deceive someone. If I sell you a fake Honus Wagner baseball card and I know it is fake, that is fraud. If I sell you a fake Honus Wagner baseball card and I believe it is genuine, that is not fraud, because I am not intending to deceive you. That is the required specific intent in a fraud case.
CALCRIM No. 1804. Theft by False Pretense (Pen. Code, § 484) :: California Criminal Jury Instructions (CALCRIM) (2023) :: Justia
This is the jury instruction in California for Theft by False Pretense. Contained within is the required specific intent for fraud:
1. The defendant knowingly and intentionally deceived a property owner [or the owner’s agent] by false or fraudulent representation or pretense;
So you have to knowingly and intentionally deceive.
It also defines a false pretense:
A false pretense is any act, word, symbol, or token the purpose of which is to deceive.
Someone makes a false pretense if, intending to deceive, he or she does one or more of the following:
1. Gives information he or she knows is false;
OR
2. Makes a misrepresentation recklessly without information that justifies a reasonable belief in its truth;
OR
3. Does not give information when he or she has an obligation to do so;
OR
4. Makes a promise not intending to do what he or she promises.

Proof that the representation or pretense was false is not enough by itself to prove that the defendant intended to deceive.

So it is not enough simply to say that Trump lost the election and claims that he won and acted in accordance with those claims by having electors to say he won and calling the Sec of State of Georgia to have him prove he won by finding and throwing out the illegal votes. It needs to be proven that when he did those things his purpose was to deceive and that the information he was giving was false.

Given that there are apparently abundant accounts that he was told he lost legitimately, and that he said he lost, it would be hard for him to claim that he didn't give information he knew was false or that he didn't intend to deceive, but those are the requirements. I don't know the instruction for federal or Georgia fraud, but I would guess they are substantially similar.

 

So you are saying it's ok to break the law if you believe you are in the right? So if trump believed the results were fraud, it means it's ok to break laws to get the result you want???? Or to illegally instruct an AG to fix an election - not just find "fraudulent" votes but to manufacture an excuse to throw them out.

The real question is not whether or not Trump believed he was in the right, but rather or not he broke a law.

I might believe I the speed limit is 80, but if it's actually 65 and I get pulled over, I am pretty sure my belief isn't going to get me out of that ticket.

 

No. I am saying that fraud is a specific intent crime that requires an intent to deceive. One is not breaking the law of fraud if they are not intending to deceive.

You cannot break laws because of what you believe. What you believe can affect whether or not your actions constitute breaking the law.

You might want to review the transcript of his call with the AG. He specifically mentions that there were hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes (and details all the different types: multiple scans, people voting from out of state, forged signatures, no signatures, etc.) and he calls on the AG to find them. No where does he say, "Hey Brad, just manufacture a way for me to win." Raffensberger repeatedly tells him that they have investigated and that they do not agree with what Trump is saying.

The belief is part of whether the law is broken in a fraud case.

Speeding is not a specific intent crime. The elements of speeding are simply that you are driving faster than the posted limit (or the standard limit where unposted, or faster than is safe for conditions). Most crimes are general intent crimes like that. Fraud is a specific intent crime. You cannot commit fraud without an intent to deceive, because that is the required mens rea of fraud. Comparing it to a general intent crime is meaningless.