Welcome back to reality-based governing, America!
Pragmatic liberal. Quarantine chef. Empathy over all.
#BidenHarrisFTW Keep those cute doggo pics coming.
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@MitchPotato@AoDespair If we truly had a "higher standard" for POTUS candidates and their honesty, that orange pathological liar and narcissist wouldn't have passed the early primaries of 2016. Get real. Standards are dead. Only whataboutism and alternative facts remain. That's why we're fucked.
Apparently, the media has discovered Trump's mob-like practice of paying lawyers to represent his co-conspirators only to have the lawyers tell them to lie to investigators to obstruct the investigation.
This is, in fact, how he got off the hook in Mueller's investigation.
He used his cronies to obstruct the investigation long enough to find someone like Bill Barr who would come in shut down Mueller's investigation and write up a bogus OLC opionion saying obstruction couldn't be charged as a crime if there weren't also any underlying crimes being charged.
That basically made obstruction of justice illegal ONLY WHEN IT DOESN'T WORK. Just in case you were wondering where those Mueller obstruction counts disappeared to. Barr killed them.
Anyway, it worked for Trump the first time so you can't blame him for trying it again, right? There are couple of problems though.
For one, ALL of your co-conspirators have to stick together and stay with your mob lawyers or else, they're likely to flip in hopes of getting a light sentence by cooperating. We'll get back to that in a bit.
Second, it's a great strategy *if you can afford it*. Legal fees get to be extraordinarily expensive in a complex criminal case. It becomes multiples of that number once you're adding your own co-conspirators.
Trump's PAC has over $100M in the bank at the beginning of 2022. After spending $56M+ on legal fees the last 18 months combined with other expenses, his PAC currently has:
$3.5M on hand.
His PAC is broke.
So if you're wondering why he's not paying the legal fees for Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and others who helped commit his crimes, that's why. Of course, he's supposedly a billionaire, so you'd think he could pay with his own money. Why he won't (or can't) is a discussion for another day.
He has 18 indicted co-conspirators in Georgia, with 30 or more unindicted co-conspirators there and a number of them in D.C. as well.
So what happens when these people aren't represented by Trump paid lawyers?
Well, let's take Cassidy Hutchinson, for example. She told the J6 committee she had 0 recollection of anything. Once she dropped her Trump lawyer, she told them everything.
The fake electors in GA? Once they dropped their Trump lawyer, they took an immunity agreement and cooperated with Fani Willis.
Yuscil Taveras, the Mar-a-Lago IT guy? He agreed to cooperate the second he got a new lawyer and reversed his grand jury testimony, instead telling Jack Smith's team all about Trump's plot to obstruct the classified documents investigation.
Sensing a pattern? The question now becomes what happens to the rest of the co-conspirators and witnesses with independent lawyers?
What happens when Trump and his co-conspirators get indicted in other states where he can't afford to defend them and can't offer them a pardon even if he somehow manages to win in 2024?
What will it do to his campaign if guilty pleas start lining up.
My thoughts: Fulton County charges Donald Trump with racketeering, other felonies -- a Georgia election law expert explains 5 key things to know #gapol https://t.co/aVPwVZz81y
Video 1 (Trump in 2020): Bill Barr should indict my opponents “and that includes Obama and it includes Biden.”
Video 2 (Trump Today): “Is this going to be the future of America where a sitting president tells his attorney general to indict the opponent?”
🎥 @Acyn@atrupar
Trump won 53% of vote in Ohio but GOP controls 67% of seats in state house & 79% in state senate
That’s why defeat of Issue 1 such a big deal
Voters can still use direct democracy to check power of ultra gerrymandered legislature & protect fundamental rights
Goldman: One of my Republican colleagues says “we will hold members accountable.”
You are the party of George Santos! Who are you holding accountable?!? Don’t lecture us with your projection.. It’s pathetic
THIS is the Florida man just arrested for using his church's WiFi to download child p**n.
So are DeSantis & his Republicans pushing through laws to protect our kids from people like him?
No. Because surprise: he is a YOUTH PASTOR.
But was he the only church leader caught for crimes against kids? No. Not even close.
According to an expose by the Houston Chronicle, there were more than THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY church leaders and volunteers accused of sexual misconduct over 20 years (1998 to 2018).
They left behind over SEVEN HUNDRED victims.
And that's just from ONE church SECT – Southern Baptist.
These abusers are pastors. Ministers. Youth pastors. Deacons. Sunday school teachers.
I'm sure now Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, and every other Republican on Twitter will completely shift their focus to the problem of banning right-wing Christians from going anywhere near kids.
Because obviously they should stop their attacks on those of us in the LGBT+ community.
Fox Host Will Cain tells viewers to imagine what Ralph Yarl's shooter saw: "A 6-foot tall guy outside your door reportedly pulling on the glass outer door to come inside [...] This is a tragedy but there's zero evidence that it's racist."
my father is a municipal judge. In 2013 NM made gay marriage legal. In protest, every judge in his county stopped performing ALL marriages. Except my dad, who bought a rainbow bow tie and had me rewrite his vows to be gender-neutral. Here he 9 months later at his 80th ceremony.