23 thoughts on “What the Trump Indictment Means

  1. 1. It is always worse than it looks;

    2. Chances are he is still a lock for the 2024 Republican nominee for President of the United StatesReport

    1. one fascinating thing for me in that second item – which I agree with – is going to be how he campaigns. I would thin once jury selection is complete he’d essentially have to be muzzled by his defense teams to have a shot at winning. And I just don’t see that happening.Report

  2. That tape is just mind blowing- we’ve always known that Trump was deranged but to pull a Nixon? Just amazing.Report

    1. I continue to be astounded that famous and powerful people in general have still not learned “Don’t record it or write it down unless you’re willing to have it appear in court.”Report

        1. The number who get caught, prosecuted, and punished for their misdeeds is really small. I bet recording this type of stuff is a type of game for them. They do it because it makes them feel immune from the rules.Report

      1. Ok, but up until now my general understanding was that Trump, himself, was especially squirrelly and sensitive about outright saying anything strictly illegal (and often even legible) and was famously averse to having things put down in writing so for him to be on tape stepping in it this bad is surprising. Possibly it’s because it involves document classification which he likely has never had any significant understanding of since it’s entirely alien to what he’d deal with in his “businesses”?Report

        1. Maybe? My totally uninformed beyond what’s in the news take is that a lot of the previous efforts against him were clumsy thrusts based on murky facts, well post hoc and from times when Trump himself was probably not being watched very carefully. You can get away saying and doing all kinds of things when no one is really looking. That might even make someone appear smart or slippery in our system which really does require at least some evidence. But once you’re being watched, and know you’re being watched, and yet you’re still admitting to criminal conduct? Well… it makes me think he wasn’t all that slippery or self aware to begin with.

          As an aside this is why I’ve found the stuff in NY to be so meh in terms of likely outcome and instead been waiting for Georgia where the facts are so simple, clear, and well established. But if he’s also going to openly admit to federal crimes, well, I’m not sure what the DOJ is supposed to do, and as a person who thinks the country will be way better off with him in prison I’ll take it.Report

          1. Yeah I might be recalling his former longtime Lawyer saying something to that effect but I don’t like Trump live in my head for long so it’s only a vague association.
            Agreed in total on the NY charges, they should have waited, but at least Trump gave the Feds some real meat to chew on.Report

  3. We probably ought to put past presidents in the pokey for a couple years after they leave office just out of principle for the crimes they likely committed but got away with. DJT probably deserves several multiples of that.Report

    1. At least as I understand it, on this particular subject, when Obama was going to leave the White House he called the National Archives and told them to come take everything, then send digital copies of things he was entitled to have to his library project. I vaguely recall thinking, when I saw that, “Dang! I wish someone would come scan everything in these file drawers and old lab notebooks, index it all, then send me a copy while the archivists worried about long-term preservation.”

      Full disclosure: legally, I am probably not allowed to have possession of those lab notebooks, nor a bunch of archive CD-ROMs, nor stuff currently on my SSD. OTOH, a few years ago I got a call from a lawyer at the very large corporation that is entitled to have those things asking if I had a copy and could I send them one.Report

  4. As per my other comment about how this will be a test of our citizenry and committment to democracy;

    We already know that his support among the 70 some million voters is still strong.

    We already know that thousands of them were willing to take part in a violent attempt to overthrow the election;

    So if things come to pass and he is in fact convicted and thrown in jail; How hard is it to imagine that he will once again call on his supporters to violently attack the government?

    How many do you suppose would heed the call?

    How certain are you of your answer?Report

    1. Fortunately, this is what I think most people these days think of with the phrase “Crossing the Rubicon.”

      We may also take heart that many of the white supremacist or modern fascist groups that stocked the ranks of the J6 rioters and peripheral milita groups around the country have taken significant hits and many of their leaders are now in prison, and at least a substantial minority of their former believers have been disillusioned (by failure if nothing else).

      That doesn’t mean the danger you write of is now in our past. It means we aren’t in as much trouble as we were on January 6, 2021.Report

      1. Fortunately, this is what I think most people these days think of with the phrase “Crossing the Rubicon.”

        Folk have lost their understanding of history.Report

  5. I admit, I wondered if it wasn’t the case that he just kept stuff like his medical files (which are sensitive) and whatnot. Stuff that when he said “those are mine”, I might agree.

    Well, lemme just say that this is well above and beyond anything that I would have believed was a worst-case scenario. Holy cow. It’s *NUTS*.Report

    1. What I found effed up was I notice Bill Barr on television recently, as in Trumps former AG, and he said something to the fact that It’s not that Trump absconded with the docs that caused him the big trouble, it’s that he obfuscated, lied, obstructed and jerked around the authorities about the docs he absconded with for a year and a half that has him in deep crap. If he’d just given them all back when they first asked, or when they asked the tenth time or the fiftieth time it would all have just gone away.Report

      1. This is the thread that I read. I think you will enjoy it too.

        Report

  6. It seems a pretty open-and-shut case that could have easily been avoided if Trump had simply not thought of himself as beyond the law.Report

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