The Deranged Jack Smith Signing
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From his statement it's because the firm aided in the weaponization of the justice department... which is funny since it came after a statement where Trump is, you guessed it, weaponizing the justice department. "Sword in his hand? BAD! Sword in my hand? GOOD!"
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@89th To be clear, you think the Jack Smith indictments were not at all lawfair, just an objectively fair usage of the Biden DOJ? Which just happened to get batted back by SCOTUS because, I guess, SCOTUS is captured by Trump? Just trying to get all the logic straight here, as I absorb the deep principle behind the outrage at this action from the Trump administration.
Education is extremely important.
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They weren’t lawfare and the cases never made it to scotus. He filed a superseding indictment after Trump v United States that contained all the original charges, but omitted some evidence that would have been verboten under the ruling.
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They weren’t lawfare and the cases never made it to scotus. He filed a superseding indictment after Trump v United States that contained all the original charges, but omitted some evidence that would have been verboten under the ruling.
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Well they were the precursor to Trump v US. But Trump wasn’t arguing against specific indictments, he was arguing for general immunity. SCOTUS ruled on the latter and Smith filed a superseding indictment taking the ruling into account. To great outrage here by the way.
Only non-witches get due process.
- Cotton Mather, Salem Massachusetts, 1692
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Well they were the precursor to Trump v US. But Trump wasn’t arguing against specific indictments, he was arguing for general immunity. SCOTUS ruled on the latter and Smith filed a superseding indictment taking the ruling into account. To great outrage here by the way.
@jon-nyc yes I'm aware court proceedings involve back and forth. You have a tendency to find truth in whichever side you prefer, focusing on that side's most recent move, rather than on the most recent actual legal decision. My favorite example of this is when the Florida judge found against Disney in its case, and you still claimed rhetorical victory based on the fact that they're appealing.
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@89th To be clear, you think the Jack Smith indictments were not at all lawfair, just an objectively fair usage of the Biden DOJ? Which just happened to get batted back by SCOTUS because, I guess, SCOTUS is captured by Trump? Just trying to get all the logic straight here, as I absorb the deep principle behind the outrage at this action from the Trump administration.
@Horace said in The Deranged Jack Smith Signing:
@89th To be clear, you think the Jack Smith indictments were not at all lawfair, just an objectively fair usage of the Biden DOJ? Which just happened to get batted back by SCOTUS because, I guess, SCOTUS is captured by Trump? Just trying to get all the logic straight here, as I absorb the deep principle behind the outrage at this action from the Trump administration.
@Horace before I answer your question, did you read the indictments? Both the original ones and the ones that were revised to be compliant based on SCOTUS' ruling? At least the first 3-4 pages of them?
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@Horace said in The Deranged Jack Smith Signing:
@89th To be clear, you think the Jack Smith indictments were not at all lawfair, just an objectively fair usage of the Biden DOJ? Which just happened to get batted back by SCOTUS because, I guess, SCOTUS is captured by Trump? Just trying to get all the logic straight here, as I absorb the deep principle behind the outrage at this action from the Trump administration.
@Horace before I answer your question, did you read the indictments? Both the original ones and the ones that were revised to be compliant based on SCOTUS' ruling? At least the first 3-4 pages of them?
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Ok, if not, I found the link just now: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000191-9582-d690-a9f3-dfff52f50000
Anyway, to answer your question, no I didn't think it was lawfare at all. I know, if you're on the right you think I'm an idiot, but let's think about this in a bubble. And keep in mind, from a civics perspective, the peaceful transfer of power and the Constitution should be the most protected rituals and artifacts for our country to survive.
Read the indictment, replace Trump with "Obama" or just any President and look at the facts (both in the indictment and in general what we already know)... I think it is highly appropriate, damn it is incumbent upon us as a country, to perform a federal investigation into such an unprecedented and egregious abuse of influence and power to try and disrupt a Presidential election and transfer of power with such fraudulent claims (and the ripple effect of the lives lost and impacted by those who believed the lies). But just read the indictment, replace Trump with Biden, or Obama, or any President name and if you think that is something the DOJ shouldn't investigate then we're just on different pages. It was not lawfare. It was justice and due process.
And I know this next statement will hold no water because of "lawfare" but think about this, if Trump hadn't won, his dozens of felonies (found guilty), sexual assault (liable), fraud (guilty and fined), etc... would've potentially seen Trump in federal prison after following due process in the courts and by juries. But I guess it was just a big conspiracy because Trump has mean tweets and Biden was out to get him.
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@89th I was content to let the court proceedings play out, mostly because I wanted more clarity from arguments from both sides about where the line between Trump believing his own delusions (a human failing, which is not difficult to find amongst the masses), and illegal plans for a takeover of our very democracy. I'm aware that a lot of the most severe rhetorical dunks aren't fair framings. The "fake elector" scheme for instance was a contingency plan for electors to be available if election fraud was ever established, which obviously it never was. In any case, no plan, even the most egregious if you accept those framings, was viable without SCOTUS complicity. Ultimately, that's why I was never overwhelmed with emotion by any of it. Because even the worst framings from the most motivated opposition, boil down to fantasies.
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Fair enough. I can put it even more simply (I do have a simple brain), to me... investigating all the stuff the President (not just a normal citizen, but the person losing power) did to try and prevent the winner from being sworn in makes sense to me. Doesn't matter who it was, it deserved an investigation. Even if the result is nothing, that is not lawfare.
To me, lawfare would be asking the DOJ to just go...you know, go find something, anything, maybe plant evidence (ok joking), but do whatever...just use the agency to dig for bodies in order to smear an opponent.
Not joking, typing that out just reminded me of Trump's call to Ukraine to ask them to find evidence he can use against Biden in the 2020 election. Maybe that is one reason Trump is so quick to throw Zelensky under the tank.
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Selective prosecution is lawfare, and it is not easily agreed upon what is or is not selective prosecution. I do know that Trump was facing several hundred years over the document cases. I'm fairly confident that that is selective prosecution, and that if any former president had had documents in their private residence, it would not have been prosecuted. Granted, Trump gave the authorities the middle finger when they asked for them back, which former presidents would not have done. I remember well the rhetoric at the time. How the nuclear codes were there, how Trump was probably selling them to Russia. It is the context of that sort of rhetoric that we're supposed to take talking points seriously to this day.
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That is true, and a separate indictment. But yes I'd imagine there wouldn't have been a pursuit by the DOJ in the classified documents case had Trump not denied his election loss and lied to get folks to stop the process so he didn't have to leave office. I'd say the classified documents indictment was 60% selective prosecution and the election interference was 10% selective prosecution. Clearly these numbers were not just made up in my head just now.
