Trump 63: Fani Makes It Four (Indictments)

[BensAllergies]

Regarding the possibility of him going to jail once/if convicted during the March trial, isn’t it possible he won’t be remanded? I seem to remember that his crony Steve Bannon (?) as well as Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos were able to wait until sentencing.

ETA: it looks like Bannon was successful and didn’t have to go to jail while appealing his conviction. Holmes argued for the same thing but the judge denied her.

Trump will most definitely ask to remain free while appealing his conviction. Whether it’s granted or not I don’t know.

Edited August 31, 2023 by BensAllergies

[47of74]

Until I get P01135809 memorized I've added this to my Firefox bookmark bar.

[onekidanddone]

2 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Until I get P01135809 memorized I've added this to my Firefox bookmark bar.

Found about this from Facebook 

https://www.personalizationmall.com/Personalized-Magnetic-Bumper-Stickers-Oval-i35867.item?productid=13253&sdest=Search&sdestid=148268578

 

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by onekidanddone

[Xan]

Captain Crazypants has heard that Letitia James wants to bar him from doing business in NY due to the inflated numbers regarding his assets.  Now, anyone holding him to account for anything is "election interference".

Spoiler

At this point, I don't think Donald has any idea how much he's worth.  He just makes things up as he goes along.  I thought one of the funniest things in his deposition was that he claimed the banks were "happy" and wanted to loan him even more than the amount he was asking.  

The trouble with not being anchored to the truth is that you end up not being anchored to anything.

[GreyhoundFan]

Good grief:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

And the grit goes on...

 

[onekidanddone]

3 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

And the grit goes on...

 

The call is coming from inside the house. 

[GreyhoundFan]

TFG is really on a legal roll...

 

[srlm]

6 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Good grief:

 

 

13 hours ago, Xan said:

Captain Crazypants has heard that Letitia James wants to bar him from doing business in NY due to the inflated numbers regarding his assets.  Now, anyone holding him to account for anything is "election interference".

  Hide contents

At this point, I don't think Donald has any idea how much he's worth.  He just makes things up as he goes along.  I thought one of the funniest things in his deposition was that he claimed the banks were "happy" and wanted to loan him even more than the amount he was asking.  

The trouble with not being anchored to the truth is that you end up not being anchored to anything.

he is fucking crazy. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Everything Trump Touches Dies: "Trump’s Truth Social facing a key funding deadline"

Quote

When former president Donald Trump’s media start-up announced in October 2021 that it planned to merge with a Miami-based company called Digital World Acquisition, the deal was an instant stock-market hit.

With the $300 million Digital World had already raised from investors, Trump Media & Technology Group, creator of the pro-Trump social network Truth Social, pledged then that the merger would create a tech titan worth $875 million at the start and, depending on the stock’s performance, up to $1.7 billion later.

All they needed was for the merger to close — a process that Digital World, in a July 2021 preliminary prospectus, estimated would happen within 12 to 18 months.

“Everyone asks me why doesn’t someone stand up to Big Tech? Well, we will be soon!” Trump said in a Trump Media statement that month.

Now, almost two years later, the deal faces what could be a catastrophic threat. With the merger stalled for months, Digital World is fast approaching a Sept. 8 deadline for the merger to close and has scheduled a shareholder meeting for Tuesday in hopes of getting enough votes to extend the deadline another year.

If the vote fails, Digital World will be required by law to liquidate and return $300 million to its shareholders, leaving Trump’s company with nothing from the transaction.

For Digital World, it would signal the ultimate financial fall from grace for a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that turned its proximity to the former president into what was once one of the stock market’s hottest trades. Its share price, which peaked in its first hours at $175, has since fallen to about $14.

Digital World’s efforts to merge with Trump Media have been troubled almost from the start, beset by allegations that it began its conversations with the former president’s company before they were permitted under SPAC rules.

Then, in the past year, its issues became more pronounced: Its chief executive was terminated by the board, a former board member was arrested on charges of insider trading, and the company agreed to pay an $18 million settlement to resolve charges that it had misled investors and given false information to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The merger has “been pretty much unprecedented in terms of all of the glitches,” said Jay Ritter, a University of Florida finance professor who studies stock markets. “The deal does seem to be running out of time. You can’t just keep getting extensions forever.”

The Washington Post provided a detailed outline of its reporting for this article to Digital World and Trump Media.

Shannon Devine, a spokeswoman for Trump Media, which has sued The Post in an ongoing lawsuit for defamation over its past coverage of the merger, said in a statement, “Having repeatedly defamed TMTG with false accusations that it still hasn’t retracted, The Washington Post adds to its heaping pile of bias with this new collection of defamatory and self-refuting falsehoods, proving once again why it’s a terrible mistake for anyone to believe a word they read in this publication.”

The statement did not single out any specific inaccuracy in this story, but Trump Media has alleged in its lawsuit that The Post previously erroneously reported that Trump Media paid a finder’s fee for a loan it received to a company that Digital World’s previous CEO had an interest in.

The SEC declined to comment.

SPACs are known as “blank check” companies because they raise money from investors to buy a private company before identifying who they intend to target. Once the SPAC decides on and discloses its target, it works to merge with that company and bring it to the public stock market, avoiding some of the demands of a more traditional initial public offering, or IPO.

If the SPAC is unable to complete the merger within the time it specifies, it must return the money it raised to shareholders.

Digital World completed its IPO on Sept. 8, 2021, and set a “termination date” for when the merger would be completed one year later, it said in SEC filings. Then, last August, Digital World said in a filing that the board believed it did not have sufficient time to complete the merger and asked shareholders to approve up to four three-months extensions.

Digital World’s leaders then staged an intense get-out-the-vote campaign, postponing shareholder meetings six times as they worked to secure enough investor support. After drawing on millions of dollars in funding from its corporate sponsor, ARC Global Investments II, the company was ultimately able to extend its deadline to Sept. 8 of this year.

Digital World needs 65 percent of the shares held by its nearly 400,000 investors to vote “yes” on the deadline extension; unvoted shares are counted as “no” votes. If the extension fails, Digital World said in a filing in July that it would “cease all operations except for the purpose of winding up” and repay investors at a price of about $10.24 per share — far below what many shareholders paid.

Deadline-extension votes like these are almost always approved because SPAC shares usually are bought by professional or institutional investors who closely track how a deal unfolds, Ritter said.

But Digital World’s shareholder base is made up largely of small-time “retail” investors, making it harder for the company to boost shareholder participation in critical votes. Ritter said he suspects these investors, many of whom bought shares out of love for Trump or loyalty to his brand, may not be paying attention as the liquidation deadline approaches.

Trump Media has blamed the SEC for the deal’s troubles, saying in a statement last year that the agency had worked to “sabotage” the merger for political reasons with “a bureaucratic black hole of inaction.”

But the SEC, which requires SPACs to meet disclosure requirements and other closing conditions before permitting a merger, said in July that it had investigated Digital World and found it had made “material misrepresentations” to investors.

In filings dating back to its September 2021 IPO, Digital World executives said they had not participated in merger discussions with any companies when in fact they’d started speaking with Trump Media leaders months earlier, in violation of federal antifraud guidelines, the SEC said in the statement.

In agreeing to pay an $18 million settlement over its false statements if the merger closes, Digital World said it would revise its registration statement, known as a Form S-4, to correct inaccuracies. The company has yet to resubmit that revised document, SEC filings show.

In a separate filing, Digital World said it also was not ready to file two required quarterly financial reports covering the first half of this year, saying it could not complete them in time without “unreasonable effort or expense.” It has sparred with its former auditors in SEC filings and letters over who is to blame for missing information.

Digital World also is late in filing two required quarterly financial reports with the Nasdaq stock exchange, the company said, adding that Nasdaq has given the company until November to file the reports or risk being delisted.

In a flurry of notices to shareholders, the company has pushed investors to vote to stave off liquidation. “Time is Running Out. Don’t Delay,” one mailer said, in underlined font. “DO NOT THROW THIS AWAY.”

Digital World’s chief executive, Eric Swider, said in a statement to The Post that most of this article’s reporting was “inaccurate or wildly misleading” but offered only four specific responses, arguing that the idea that the deal is on the edge of catastrophe is “nowhere near the truth”; that the company does not “look for ‘hype,’” and that he disputed the existence of a quote attributed to him in a company statement as well as the meaning of one of his Truth Social posts.

Swider has in recent days posted “URGENT!!” messages on Truth Social imploring shareholders to vote. In one post, he wrote, “As the Democrats will tell you; management says vote early, vote often. Bring all of your friends with you.” Swider told The Post the quote “had nothing to do with” Digital World. The post was written three days after Digital World postponed its last shareholder meeting with an official filing that quoted Swider as saying, “Our SPAC is at a defining crossroads.”

In another company statement on Aug. 22, Swider was quoted saying, “A vote for the Extension is a vote for freedom of speech.” When told The Post intended to include the quote in this story, Swider said in an email, “I do not believe this is accurate.” Days before the shareholder vote, the statement remained online.

Trump, who would retain his 90 percent ownership of Trump Media if the deal falls apart, has yet to make mention of the shareholder vote on his own Truth Social account.

Truth Social has attracted a relatively meager following. Though Trump Media projected in a 2021 investor presentation that the site would have 41 million total users by the end of this year, usage estimates from Similarweb, a data firm that analyzes web traffic, suggest it is a long way from reaching that goal.

According to Similarweb estimates, roughly 500,000 monthly active users in the United States visited Truth Social via its Apple and Android mobile apps in July, down from 600,000 in June.

Similarweb’s estimate of how many people in the United States visited Truth Social in July from either a desktop computer or their phone’s web browser totaled just over 1 million, down nearly 20 percent since June. (There is some overlap, given that users can access the site on both their desktops and phones.) Three times as many unique visitors in July visited the websites for The Old Farmer’s Almanac and the Denver Gazette, Similarweb estimates show.

Trump Media also has yet to unveil any of the other offerings it promoted in 2021, such as a subscription video service, TMTG+, that would feature “non-woke” entertainment. In campaign financial filings, Trump has placed the company’s value at between $5 million and $25 million.

In recent weeks, Trump has used Truth Social to hammer some of the public officials connected to his four criminal indictments.

The site has missed out on some opportunities for promotion, however. When Trump sat for an interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson scheduled to counter the Republican primary debate, the video aired not on Trump’s own social network but on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Trump had told his advisers he didn’t want the video to land on a Truth Social competitor, but Carlson’s team argued that Trump’s platform didn’t have the necessary reach, people familiar with the negotiations told The Washington Post.

Truth Social’s main point of distinction — its exclusivity to Trump’s online musings — could face its own threat. On Aug. 24, after surrendering at an Atlanta jail on felony charges alleging he participated in a criminal conspiracy to overturn his 2020 election loss, Trump posted his first tweet in more than two years, including his mug shot.

On Truth Social, some users expressed frustration at what they argued was a betrayal of their pro-Trump corner of the web. One user, with the handle “45MAGA2022,” posted on Truth Social the night the interview aired, “How is this Tweet remotely beneficial to” the merger deal “and/or beneficial to #Truth?”

Trump, however, said he isn’t going anywhere and that Truth Social was his “home.” In a post there Monday, he wrote, “TRUTH SOCIAL IS THE GREATEST & ‘HOTTEST’ FORM, SYSTEM, & PLATFORM OF COMMUNICATION IN AMERICA, & INDEED THE WORLD, TODAY. THAT’S WHY I USE IT — THERE IS NOTHING THAT COMES EVEN CLOSE!!!”

[GreyhoundFan]

Today

[GreyhoundFan]

Quote

Trump had to submit to a 7-hour deposition with the NY Attorney General for their civil fraud case against Trump Org this past April. A transcript of that was just released. The entire deposition was combative, with Trump's lawyers making hundreds of objections while Trump repeated over and over how unfair everything was and how badly he was being treated.

Trump repeated several complaints over and over in response to questions. He said that the judge's ruling that the Statute of Limitations didn't apply to his case was unfair, that they should be focused on prosecuting other people besides him, and that NY was going downhill because of them. 

The case is basically focused on Trump misrepresenting the value of his net worth and assets to lenders and other entities to secure financing or to close deals in his Statement of Financial Conditions. While Trump was forced to admit over and over that the value of his assets was inflated, he blamed his accountants or other people and factors for that. But his main defense, which he repeated dozens of times, was what he referred to as a "worthless clause."

This clause is basically a disclaimer at the beginning of the statements that any entity who receives them should conduct their own assessment of the value of his properties and he was not responsible if the valuations provided by him were incorrect. Essentially, it is his position that this clause gives him immunity from being held liable for any misrepresentations since that disclaimer renders all the numbers in the statement "worthless."

Another common theme is that Trump always justifies overvaluations of his properties by discussing their potential worth - what he thinks could be done with them to make them more valuable - and he factored in these potential future earnings or projects in his statements of their current value. For example - he would say that the current market value of a property was X, but if he broke it up for condos it would be worth much more.

Trump repeatedly raged at the prosecutors about how unfair the case was. At one point he said, "I think you should release me from this case. This is ridiculous. Even the press agrees with me." P.124.

Now, the key parts. At the end of this article, I provided a link to the full 497-page transcript to the deposition. At the end of each section of this summary I provide the page number that corresponds to the transcript.

TRUST WHILE PRESIDENT

Trump testified that when he ran for president, he put Trump Org in a trust and had nothing to do with business affairs while in office. He said at first Don Jr and his accountant Allen Weisselberg was put in charge of the trust when he was a candidate, then it was handed over to be managed by an attorney in DC while he was president, now it is being run by Eric. P.20-24.

When asked why he put Don Jr in charge of it at first, Trump said, "He's done a good job, he's well educated." He said that prior to the trust, Don Jr worked in sales for the company and Eric focused on management of the properties. P.25-26. He said he told them when he was a candidate and then president that he instructed them not to do any business deals to avoid any conflicts of interest. P.30. He said Ivanka was less involved in the business at that point because she had started her own clothing business. P.50.

He said that prior to placing Trump Org in trust, Don Jr, Eric, and Ivanka were paid by the company into an LLC called TTT Consulting. The first quarter of 2013 they were each paid $257,000 as an example. When asked what they did for the company, he said "they'd go out and meet people, bring people in to bring deals to the company." P.361-362.

THE TRUMP BRAND

He said that one of the things that is most unfair when people value his assets is they fail to take into account the value of his name when it is attached to any property or asset. He frequently compared his name to Coca-Cola. He said that once he became president, his name became "the hottest brand in the world," and anything with his name on it is instantly worth more. P.36.

To illustrate this point, he brought up the sales of his Trump as Superhero NFTs. He said the NFT market was dead, but when he put his on sale for $99 they sold out thousands in one day. He then claimed that some of these NFTs now sell for as much as $82,000 on the resale market. P.36-37.

Trump said that the value of his name alone is worth more than the assessed value of all his other properties combined. He said that he has valued his name at $2.9 Billion on some financial statements, but he really thinks it is worth more like $10 Billion. P.38-39.

STATEMENTS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION 

Trump said when he valued his properties in these formal statements to lenders and other entities, he didn't have them appraised or assessed because it would take too long to do that. When asked what method he used, he said that he "would use common sense." P.100-101.

When he was confronted with a 2022 letter from his accounting firm Mazars that financial institutions could no longer trust the Statements of Financial Condition they prepared from 2011-2020 because the information they received from Trump Org was inaccurate, he said they only did that because the AG "harassed them and they were petrified." He claimed that he had a conversation with a senior partner and, "He was so scared, he was crying."

MAR-A-LAGO

Trump claims that Mar-a-Lago is worth $1.5 billion. When asked where he came up with that number, he says that is his own personal assessment of its worth. P.33. Later in the deposition he claimed he heard that number from "broker talk." P.222.

DORAL

When discussing the value of the Doral golf courses and property, he made a point to say that it was zoned for gambling, so that made it potentially worth much more than its current market value if he was ever able to secure a gaming license. However, this has been something he has been unable to do. P.34.

Trump said all his golf resorts saw increased profit during covid because business travelers were stuck at home and were unable to do recreation and entertainment at indoor venues. P.81.

He said that when he submitted his net worth statement to Deutsche Bank for the financing, he included an item for $2.93 billion in his assets for the value of his name. He explained that "if I wanted to build up my net worth, all I had to do was include my brand value." However, the bank refused to consider that and made him remove it. P.342-343.

He said the value of all his Florida properties went up because of the great economic conditions created by its governors. When asked which governors specifically did a great job, he said Charlie Crist and Rick Scott, omitting Ron Desantis. P.307.

TURNBERRY SCOTLAND

He claims that he could sell Turnberry for much more than its assessed value. He said if he tried to sell it to the Saudis, he could get "a fortune" from them - "far beyond what it's worth." He claims that he has had numerous offers from people to buy Turnberry for huge sums, but refused to say who they were. P.62-66.

SILVER SPRINGS, NY

At one point, Trump had claimed that this property was worth $291 million on his financial statement. He said it was the most valuable house in NY and if he sold it to the Saudis he could get that much. He was confronted by Forbes in a 2015 interview about that claim by a reporter who said they assessed it through a 3rd party at only $23 million. 

Trump admitted that the $291 million was too high, thinks maybe Eric or Weisselberg came up with that original number, but still says it was worth at least $125 million. He then said if the AG would clean up crime in NY then the property could be worth much more. The prosecutor then noted that the property is in Bedford, which has virtually zero crime. P.178-191.

TRUMP INTERNATIONAL ABERDEEN SCOTLAND

In 2013, this property was assessed at $191 million. In 2015, Trump valued it on his financial statements at $435 million. When asked how the value of the property could have more than doubled in just two years, he claimed that Sean Connery helped him negotiate a zoning permit for to build another course on the property but admitted that he hasn't actually build it yet. P.235-237.

He then said he had big plans to develop the property further by building a hotel and houses, but Scotland put a wind turbine near the course, and he refused to develop further unless they removed it. He said he testified before the Scottish Parliament and explained, "I happen to be a very good environmentalist, in my own way," and told them he would not provide any more economic development unless they removed the turbine. They refused, so he has not done anything additional to the property. P.246-248.

40 WALL STREET

In 2015, this property was appraised for $260 million, but Trump listed it as valued at $530 million. When asked how it could be worth more than double what the bank (Capital One) appraised it at, he said that "bank appraisals are always low." When asked to explain how he could value it that high, he said that he renegotiated and secured extensions of the leases from some of the tenants, so that made it more valuable. P.260-261.

TRUMP INTERNATIONAL DC

He said that the value of his property dropped during covid before it was ultimately sold to Waldorf Astoria. He said that at one point he considered suing DC during covid because their restrictions made it impossible for him to make money. He said Ivanka negotiated the sale to Waldorf. P.47-49.

CURRENT ASSETS AND LIABILITIES

At one point in the deposition, Trump claimed that he currently has $400 million in cash in the bank. P.80. He said that his biggest business expense by far is legal fees. P.35. 

Trump claimed that he never needed to use banks to borrow money for his deals because he always had enough cash to self-finance, but he would do it for the tax benefits. P.83.

Link to full transcript is here: DocumentDisplayServlet (state.ny.us)

[Ozlsn]

 Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

[GreyhoundFan]

"Why Trump’s vow to appeal his D.C. trial date probably won’t work"

Quote

When former president Donald Trump declared last week that he would appeal a federal judge’s decision to schedule his D.C. election-obstruction trial for March, legal experts quickly shot down the idea.

That’s because the date a trial is scheduled is generally not an appealable issue. In addition, the court system is generally loath to scrutinize a judge’s decisions in a criminal case before the trial is completed.

Federal courts have long held — and state courts usually agree — that criminal defendants should not be able to appeal most pretrial decisions until after a trial is over. If they could, their cases would probably drag on much longer before getting to a jury.

Appeals courts tend to dislike such appeals, and consider them only in rare instances where a trial judge’s decision might cause harm that cannot be undone by a post-conviction appeal.

“Most people think a person can appeal anything they don’t like in a case along the way, and that’s just not how the system works,” said Linda Julin McNamara, a former deputy appellate chief at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Tampa. “There’s very little he can do at this point to slow things down via the appeal process.”

Trump, the Republican front-runner for the 2024 presidential nomination, faces four criminal cases — federal charges in D.C. and state charges in Georgia over efforts to block Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory, federal charges of mishandling classified documents in Florida, and a state business-fraud case in New York. He has pleaded not guilty to all 91 charges against him.

Lawyers for the former president have argued, unsuccessfully so far, that his trials should take place after the 2024 election, sometimes citing the presidential campaign calendar or the complexity of the charges against him.

Trump’s Georgia trial date has not yet been set. And once dates are put on the calendar, they often slide back as courts deal with conflicts and pretrial motions. But judges in his other cases have scheduled his trials to begin March 4 in Washington; March 25 in New York; and during the two-week period that begins May 20 in Florida.

In the Washington case, Trump had sought a trial date in early 2026, which U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected as far too long to wait. Prosecutors had suggested a January trial date.

After Chutkan settled on March 4 at a hearing last week, Trump posted on social media that “a biased, Trump Hating Judge gave me only a two month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted.” He also noted that Super Tuesday, one of the most important primary days of the 2024 presidential race, comes just one day after the proposed start of the trial. “I will APPEAL!” Trump wrote.

Kirsten Small, an appellate lawyer at Maynard Nexsen, said courts severely limit what appeals can be filed before trial, particularly in criminal cases, but do allow them “where the defendant is going to lose rights that cannot be regained.”

So, for example, if a defendant faced double jeopardy — being tried twice for the same alleged crime — an appeals court might intervene.

“It’s sort of like an instant video replay for a court case, because it halts the play and puts it to a higher authority,” Small said. “But for that reason, it’s pretty limited.”

Defendants may file pretrial motions, however, and those also take time for a judge to consider. Trump’s lawyer, John Lauro, told Chutkan at the Aug. 28 hearing that the former president’s legal team is preparing a slew of them.

Trump was indicted in D.C. on four charges: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of an official proceeding; and conspiracy against voting rights. Lauro said he will attack the indictment on several fronts, arguing the former president’s actions were protected by the First Amendment — that he had a right to speak and act on what he claimed was voter fraud in 2020 — and saying that Trump is a victim of selective prosecution motivated by politics.

Lauro also told the judge that Trump’s lawyers are “going to have a very, very unique and extensive motion that deals with executive immunity” — arguing that in 2020 and early 2021 Trump was acting in his capacity as president and therefore immune from prosecution. Such a motion could be filed in the first half of this month, he suggested.

Of all the legal issues Lauro has raised since his client was indicted in the case in early August, it’s the executive immunity claim that, once decided by Chutkan, probably has the best chance of reaching a higher court before trial — what lawyers call an interlocutory appeal.

“There’s a very small class of matters that can be taken up on an interlocutory basis, and in this case, immunity is something that may merit an interlocutory appeal, because immunity is immunity from prosecution altogether,” McNamara said. In other words, if someone has immunity, they have immunity not just from being convicted of a crime, but from being prosecuted and put on trial.

Case law on executive immunity is also sparse, so it is an issue that, conceivably, an appeals court and potentially the Supreme Court might want to wrestle with before a former president goes on trial.

It’s at least theoretically possible that Trump’s legal team could try another form of pretrial appeal, called seeking a writ of mandamus, but that is even more of a long shot than other types of interlocutory appeals.

A writ of mandamus is meant to be used only in cases where a trial judge has made a ruling so egregiously against judicial practice that lawyers on the case and higher courts think it has to be fixed immediately.

“It’s very rarely used and even more rarely successful,” said McNamara, who added that while a defendant can file notices of appeal, that doesn’t mean they have a right to appeal.

“There are rules, there are laws, and there are procedures, and every litigant has to comply with those,” she said.

The rules on pretrial appeals can apply differently to prosecutors than to defense attorneys. For example, prosecutors are generally allowed to file a pretrial appeal if a judge rules they cannot use key evidence, but defense lawyers cannot appeal evidentiary rulings that go against them until the trial is over. And in cases involving classified information — such as the D.C. case and the Florida classified documents case — prosecutors have more leeway to appeal a trial judge’s decision before trial.

Chutkan has given lawyers a deadline of Oct. 9 to file any pretrial motions in the D.C. case.

 

[Becky]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Why Trump’s vow to appeal his D.C. trial date probably won’t work"

 

Which is why I predict his lawyers will just so happen to quit on him around January or so.....  gotta delay trial to get new lawyers up to speed, y'know.  

[GreyhoundFan]

I agree, needs much more orange, plus whatever dead ferret color that mop on top of his head is called.

 

[fraurosena]

With friends like these...

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Sad

[onekidanddone]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Sad

Being nice 16 years ago is irrelevant to his being a criminal now 

[GreyhoundFan]

I hope she actually takes action against him:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

TFG is the deranged one.

[fraurosena]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

TFG is the deranged one.

I guess discovery is proving Jack Smith has an airtight case…

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

Now correct me if I'm recalling wrong: but didn't our adventure in Josh Duggar land teach us that federal cases are usually pretty solid with a high conviction rate? Or was that just certain kinds of cases? I shall not delve into the duggar threads to try to research it. 

I want all this to end and yet I can't stop looking at all the news about it.

[fraurosena]

Nana-nana-na-nah, heyyy heyyyyyy Trump lost! (again) 

 

More info:

For The Third Time A Judge Finds Trump Raped E. Jean Carroll

Quote

Author E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a department store in the mid-1990s. As President, Trump called her a liar. Carroll sued Trump for defamation. That case (Carroll 1) bogged down in the legal question of whether Trump had immunity because he was President at the time.

But Trump was not done. After leaving office he repeated his claims that she lied. Carroll sued again, and for sexual battery, invoking a change in New York law suspending the statute of limitations for such claims. Without the daunting issue of Presidential immunity to resolve that case went to trial. After hearing all the evidence, the jury ruled in Carroll’s favor, awarding her $5 million dollars in actual and punitive damages.

Subsequently, Trump tried to reduce the damages arguing the jury found he did not rape her (that he merely sexually assaulted her). That was technically correct under New York law which narrowly defines rape as requiring penetration by the penis. The jury ruled that the jury determined Trump forcibly inserted his fingers into Carroll’s vagina. The judge denied Trump’s request to reduce damages on grounds such “digital penetration” is rape as the term is commonly used and as used in other jurisdictions.

Being a glutton for punishment, Trump then raised the issue again. He sued Carroll for defamation. He claimed Carroll defamed him by accusing him of rape when a jury found he had not raped her. The judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit on grounds that the jury did find Trump raped her as the term is commonly used and as defined by other jurisdictions.

Which brings us to the third determination that Trump raped Carroll. Remember that bogged down Carroll 1 case? The courts finally determined that Trump was not acting in his role as President when he made the comments about Carroll that he did. So the question of whether the prior statements Trump made as President about Carroll were defamatory had to be resolved. Today they were resolved in Carroll’s favor.

The court granted summary judgement to Carroll on “collateral estoppel” grounds. Collateral estoppel, also called “issue preclusion,” basically states that a fact question resolved by a prior judicial determination is precluded from re-litigation of the same question. In this case the fact questions for Carroll 1 were already resolved by the jury in Carroll 2.

Thus, the judge ruled that there are no material facts issues in dispute and that Carroll is entitled to summary judgement on the question of whether Trump defamed her. There will be a trial, but it will only be to determine damages, liability is a given.

Along the way, the judge again made clear that the jury found Trump raped E. Jean Carroll. As the above picture from the decision makes clear the judge stated:

“Mr. Trump in fact did ‘rape’ Ms. Carroll as that term is commonly used and understood in contexts outside of the New York Penal Law.”

Ms. Carroll is public figure and thus had to prove to the jury that Trump’s defamation was done with “actual malice.” The judge, in summary judgement for this case, said that question was also precluded from re-litigation. For the record, I diligently attempted to find a case where a public figure, having to prove actual malice, won a defamation case on summary judgement. I found none. That makes sense because the question of actual malice is normally a contested fact issue for a jury to decide. What made this case so different was that a jury had already decided that question, making it unnecessary for another jury to decide again what was already decided.

Incredibly there may be a fourth such determination by the judge. After Carroll 2 Trump repeated his defamatory comments about Carroll yet again. She has sued him, again. When Carroll 3 is considered the same legal finding of collateral estoppel/issue preclusion should apply again. Further, Carroll should be entitled to substantially higher damages. The whole point of punitive damages is to deter the conduct and Trump defamed Carroll again after the jury in Carroll 2 imposed punitive damages. In Carroll 3 she will undoubtedly argue that those punitive damages were not enough to deter the conduct so higher damages must be imposed so that Trump will get the message.

In the Republican Party, even being a rapist is not disqualifying. I suspect that many simply view it as being a manifestation of alpha maleness.