Trump Charged With 37 counts of Espionage, Obstruction and related crimes

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is an important point.



And that doesn't even take into account documents they may not have yet been recovered.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Inspired by the indictment, here's a bit of trivia for you: "A Kaleidoscope of Mathematics," the main soundtrack theme from A Beautiful Mind (2001), has become something of a standard work for drum & bugle corps and marching bands over the past decade, in large part because of this 2014 performance:

For those who have not read the indictment, there is a text message from an unnamed Trump employee that reads:

Yes - anything that’s not the beautiful mind paper boxes can definitely go to storage. Want to take a look at the space and start moving tomorrow AM?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This link at CNN to the indictment is better than the one that I posted earlier, because it has the color pictures.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/09/politics ... index.html

[N.E. Brigand]

In New York Magazine, Jon Chait argues that "No Amount of Evidence Will Make Republicans Admit Trump's Guilt."

Chait notes that the indictment of a former head of government is not abnormal, that it "has happened several times in other democracies, and it would have happened in the United States [before now] but for Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon." What's not normal and what "carries the ominous reek of banana-republicanism, is the response by the opposition party to the news." (Edit: while it's not an exact parallel, I think it's worth noting that in 2008, Donald Trump said he was disappointed in Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi because she hadn't filed articles of impeachment against Republican President George W. Bush for having launched the Iraq war under false pretenses. Even Donald Trump used to think it was reasonable for the other branches of government to take legal action against not just a former president but a sitting president.)

Among others, Trump's leading opponent in the contest to the 2024 Republican nominee, Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, wrote last night (and has not since updated his position) that the indictments demonstrate the "weaponization of federal law enforcement," which is a "mortal threat to a free society"; Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy wrote that it "is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him" (that didn't happen: Biden didn't indict Trump) and today, after the indictment was unsealed, McCarthy said that the House of Representatives will investigate the investigation; and Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, issued this statement just in the past two hours:



The Republican Party has become the party of criminals.

[N.E. Brigand]

Unlikely, but not impossible.

Russian and Chinese agents almost certainly had the opportunity to examine and photograph some of the documents that Donald Trump was storing in unsecured rooms at a club that sees thousands of visitors every year. I would say it's likelier than not that they did so. We'll never know.

[N.E. Brigand]

Conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, who was a critic of Donald Trump until Trump began winning Republican primaries in 2016, says that the indictment is ho hum because the "conspiracy is" only "with the aide who moved the boxes" and no "documents were sold or given to third parties not in his close employ".

If Joe Biden is found to have done either of those things, you can bet Hewitt would call for Biden to be jailed for life.

Edit: In fact, Hewitt previously called for Hillary Clinton's prosecution.

[N.E. Brigand]

I'm not a fan of asset forfeiture laws, but strictly speaking: could Trump be forced to relinquish Mar-a-Lago, Bedminister, and his jet as assets that were used to further his crimes?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I wonder if Epshteyn is Attorney 2?

As for Cannon, maybe after getting slapped down so hard last year by the 11th Circuit, she will bend over backwards to be fair.

No, I don't really think so, either.

[Sunsilver]

This is an important point.



And that doesn't even take into account documents they may not have yet been recovered.

Mary Trump posted that picture of the documents in the bathroom, with the caption

This is a visual representation of Donald Trump's contempt for our democracy, for America's national security, and for YOU:

[N.E. Brigand]

So much misunderstanding out there, particularly among conservatives -- and horseshoe leftists, for instance:



This case has nothing to do with the Presidential Records Act. I don't think that act is even mentioned in the indictment.

[N.E. Brigand]

This is a fine colloquial summary of the facts laid out in the indictment.

Here's one excerpt:

the lawyer went to mar a lago, and 45 and his aides were just sitting there, like, "oh yeah. this guy wants to make sure we've turned all the stuff in. somebody take him back to the room and make sure he's comfortable."

the lawyer goes, looks around....and finds 38 things that were top secret.

and, honest to God....i think they left that stuff there deliberately so that it wouldn't look like they'd cleaned house.

so the lawyer packages up what's left......goes back out, and 45 has the AUGODDAMNEDDACITY TO BE LIKE, "Wassup? How are we lookin'?"

HAND TO GOD, this man says, "Is it good? is it bad?"

AS THOUGH HE HADN'T DIRECTED EVERYONE TO CLEAN HOUSE.

It reads like Andy Griffith's routine about attending his first football game. But this includes some visual aides.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I can't resist

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Mark these words from Marcy Wheeler:

This indictment is, in very significant part, a renewed invitation to Walt Nauta to cooperate in an ongoing grand jury investigation into what happens to documents when they go to Bedminster and disappear forever.

A very persuasive invitation.

And these, from the beginning of the same article:

I’ve become convinced that what I will call the Mar-a-Lago indictment — because I doubt this will be the only stolen documents one — is a tactical nuke: A massive tool, but simply a tactical one.

THE MAR-A-LAGO INDICTMENT IS A TACTICAL NUKE

[RoseMorninStar]

I guess the indictment been a great fund raiser for the serial grifter. People are riding around town with their Trumpy bears.

[N.E. Brigand]

I'd like to see some comparison of Donald Trump and Reality Winner. To me, it appears that (1) Trump's alleged crimes are more serious than Winner's -- his potential maximum sentence (330 years -- or 435 years with a 5-year enhancement for each top secret document) is much greater than hers was -- and (2) that Trump is more of a flight risk: he could live comfortably overseas, he has means to travel without alerting U.S. customs, and he would be welcomed in countries that do not extradite to the U.S.

Winner was jailed while awaiting her trial. In order to be consistent, shouldn't the government ask the same for Trump when he is arraigned next week?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

No.

[N.E. Brigand]

One of the more inexplicable points in this whole affair is that some documents are clearly still missing. Why didn't Donald Trump just make copies of those documents (whether because he wished to sell the information to foreign powers or just because he wanted them) and return the originals? Heck, if he had done that prior to June 2022, this whole thing would probably have blown over. He wasn't charged for anything that was returned prior to the search in August 2022.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

He wasn't charged for anything that was returned prior to the search in August 2022.

That's not correct. Ten of the 31 documents were among those that were returned on June 3, 2022 in response to the subpoena.