Democrats decry ‘sham for justice’ after prosecutors drop Trump charges
Democrats decry ‘sham for justice’ after prosecutors drop Trump charges
Congressman Dan Goldman says decision by Jack Smith ‘establishes that Donald Trump is above the law’
Summary
Special counsel Jack Smith dropped 44 federal charges against Donald Trump, citing DOJ policy that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted.
The charges, including election interference and classified documents retention, could be refiled after Trump’s presidency.
Critics, including Rep. Dan Goldman and former Capitol officer Aquilino Gonell, decried the move as a miscarriage of justice, asserting it places Trump above the law.
Trump and allies celebrated the decision as a victory, with Vice President-elect JD Vance vowing to prevent similar prosecutions.
Democrats fear Trump will seek political retaliation, deepening national divisions.
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If only we still had another month with a Dem president and his AG controlling the DOJ...
I mean a month is a short time, ideally we'd have had that the last four fucking years and had plenty of time to handle this.
Fairly certain and it appears obvious the DOJ believes the president is totally immune.
Part of the reason we are not members of the ICC.
Part of the reason Dick Cheney is not in The Hague right now.
Fairly certain United States has been a fascist country since at least 1790
Every single time someone tries to hold Trump accountable he claims it is a witch hunt.
Every single time the charges don’t stick because of intimidation or corrupt judges the public believes that it is a witch hunt just a little more and it is harder to get people to take it seriously.
This has happened so many times now that he has been able to win an election as a felon.
The DOJ knows that even if they successfully charge Trump now, his administration will get him out of it. Their only hope is to put it on pause and wait for an opportunity to actually hold him accountable. Because there is no way that can happen after he won an election.
that fat fuck'll be long dead before any justice could ever be served. justice within the legal system, that is.
Their only hope is to put it on pause and wait for an opportunity to actually hold him accountable.
it's fucking over. he won the election, and he's going to fucking pardon himself, die, or both before anyone holds anyone accountable.
he's going to gut any functional part of the legal system and get no reprimand.
Because there is no way that can happen after he won an election.
"A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one."
- Alexander Hamilton
According to what I heard on youtube from US lawyers, the statuette of limitation will run out by the time Orange Goo finishes with his current term. Leading to no trial. There is no pausing.
1846 is the clearer date to me.
What happened in 1846? Around the civil war?
We invaded México because we wanted to expand into their territory, i.e. Manifest Destiny.
I wouldn't go that far back, or say we've been a fascist country for that long.
I put a lot of blame on Dems closing ranks for Bill back in the 90s.
The root of the argument is semantic: The President has testified that he did not touch Lewinsky sexually. Lewinsky's testimony, and that of her friends and colleagues claim he did.
But the bottom line is whether this constitutes an impeachable offense. Again, Starr's report claims there is ample evidence of Clinton lying under oath, and concealing evidence of his relationship with Lewinsky to begin impeachment proceedings. Lawyers for Clinton declared today that the President's transgressions were "personal," but do not constitute an impeachable offense.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/did-clinton-lie-under-oath/
Like, people still act like trump has some mastermind legal strategy when he's just ripping off Bill by blurring the line between president and person.
At the end of the day for decades both parties have agreed that regardless of which one of them is in charge, no one gets any consequences from the others.
We can't count on those groups holding each other accountable. Voters need to hold at least one party to a higher standard, or literally no one is ever going to be held accountable.
Until we have a different electoral system there is no way to hold a party accountable without losing an election.
Pretty sure y'all just lost the election spectacularly, so might as well hold the party accountable now that the worst has already happened.
They already think it’s cause they didn’t go far right enough. They’ve got their heads up their asses as always and won’t change as always.
Yeah right? Might as well use these next 4 years, organize and rally behind a real third party no? No?
Oh y'all voting democrats again In 4 years? Blue no matter who?
Yeah that's what I thought
Which third party has any seats in any state legislature? Which one has anyone in Congress or a governorship?
None of that will change in four years. If I quit my job and start right fucking now doing organizing - even though I don't know what that entails other than dealing with people which I loathe - it will be a solid decade before any third party has any chance of controlling anything outside of a city council.
Maybe with that attitude. Bernie's movement rose from people hating the word socialist to everyone freaking out one might become President in less than a year. The Bolsheviks went from 20,000 at the beginning of the year to more than 200,000 and taking over Russia by the October Revolution. Things can change quickly if people put in the effort. Things are already primed. People are looking for a change now.
If people want to look into local chapters of organizations, there's the PSL (socialist), the FRSO (socialist), and the Greens (progressive). Working within the Democratic party is the WFP and DSA. I think it's a bad idea, but there's a faction in the DSA looking to separate from them more, maybe there is in the WFP, too, idk. There's also even more local based organizations that focus on other issues but can be pulled into a political fight later, like tenants unions, Food Not Bombs, labor unions, the Tech Workers Coalition, things like that. Hopefully we can connect these struggles together at some point and make something viable.
For an honest attempt at it?
No, it'll never be a fair fight.
But if we want a Dem primary in 2028, we need to keep demanding it, and we need to solidify around a candidate ASAP.
Voters beat the party in 08, and they've had to walk back a lot of what Hillary changed in 2016 to prevent that.
I still feel crazy that everyone ignored what happened to NH this "primary" but I don't think we're really at the point where Dems just appoint candidates without a primary.
We just need a candidate that refuses to concede until more than a handful of chosen states vote.
The worst part about the game of politics isn't the rules. It's that I'm forced to play.
Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet you can't win.
As true today as in 1987 when Heinlein wrote it
I don’t want to win. I want to not play this bullshit game anymore. ET on Atari is more fucking fun than this shit.
With all due respect then, stop playing.
Don't stick around to talk about how you no longer care, go spend your time on communities about different things.
Sometimes people need to disengage, just don't half ass it. If you need a break from it, actually take a break. Hopefully you come back before the next election. But if you just talk about needing a break and never take one, you'll never stop needing the break.
I don't want a break. That just means I've gotta come back and play the shitty game some more. I want to fuck off to the mountains and never talk to anyone ever again. I don't want to hear about any of it ever again. The entire planet is fucked and there's nothing I can do to prevent it, or even slow it down.
This is like saying "Well if you don't like that you're in a bus crash just take a break." I can't. I'm stuck here. This is the fucking NEWS community. Should I stop reading all news? Because it's going to be decline and corruption for the rest of my life.
And it's not just the news. Science memes is full of it. Solarpunk is full of it. Microblog memes is all politics. Technology is all Musk all the time.
If only the AG didn’t waste 3 years before filing charges.
How about 2.5 years in which everyone held off because they didn't want to step on the FBI's toes, and it turned out that they weren't doing anything?
This is just like Obama giving Bush and Cheney a pass for war crimes and starting a war based on complete lies.
Yep. None of this is new, it's the same song and dance.
I've criticized both parties for acting like voters have the memory of goldfish, but it's getting harder and harder to argue they're wrong.
People don't remember the shit they literally lived thru already.
That's almost insulting to goldfishes.
You're talking about a criminal case, what does a month do for you? At every turn, Trump has consistently tried to delay the process. It has nothing to do with the DOJ or AG, they are working the system to intentionally delay everything until now. Why proceed either, he's going to be president in two months.
He's making a facetious point about the huge quantities of time Merrick Garland had to waste to create this outcome.
"they are working the system to intentionally delay everything until now."
If only every criminal defendant could afford to do the same...
--It would probably be a moot point because it would be legislated away as a legal strategy by the same officials that were previously dragging their feet for Trump.
The Russia/Republican propaganda has been too strong to make anything stick. If you try to arrest Trump while he has enough followers to win an election then you’ll get a mob like Jan 6th storming whatever prison he’s held in.
It’s not as simple as you’re trying to make it sound.
Give me a break. These charges could have been pursued on day one, in Washington DC.
The administration sat on their hands.
Why do you think they “sat on their hands”? Do you think they are conspiring to help Trump? Do you think your internet armchair analysis of the situation is better that the entire DOJ and they just aren’t as smart as you?
Or is it the obvious answer that Trump has been able to get away with corruption time and time again due to Russian/republicans? And their control of our government and justice system? And the DOJ knows that if they try to prosecute Trump and the charges don’t stick that they won’t get another try.
Trust the DOJ to do their job when they just dropped their charges lol, ok. Sprinkled in some Russian/republican blame instead of a defunct system, chef's kiss. Any other propaganda we need to spread today?
Trump was successful at delaying almost all of his trials at no fault to the DOJ. I repeat:
At Trump’s request, judge delays immunity filing in Jan. 6 prosecution
Your blaming of the DOJ is disingenuous.
I never said I blamed them, you're just painting a weird conspiracy theory where the DOJ are the heroes/victims but "the rest of the goberment is controlled by RuSsIA AnD rEpuBliCans!!!" It's been apparent for everyone, the rich gets a different justice system. The system has been defunct for a long time and was on full display for the last election. This is easy lay-up policy and legislation, make politicians responsible and accountable while defending democracy. You get crickets from any incumbent, everyone is very comfortable with how the system currently works (if you're a politician).
edit: forgot to comment on the link,
Trump’s attorneys had asked to have until Nov. 21, instead of Nov. 7, to file an up-to-180-page brief arguing why Trump’s efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory
They asked for a 2 week extension, whether it's bullshit or not that's a pretty typical standard request from a legal team. It was more erroneous to imagine the actual court date going through when it was expected.
Trust the DOJ to do their job when they just dropped their charges lol, ok.
You imply the DOJ can’t be trusted to do their job because they dropped the charges. How is that not blaming the DOJ?
It’s no conspiracy theory that Russia has bot farms that push their narratives to change public opinion. Hell we have communities here on lemmy that have earned a reputation for doing that from all onlookers.
... You can trust something isn't going to get done, but the blame can be laid elsewhere... ya know? Can be a scapegoat or legitimate (probably bit of both in this instance). Like I trust the DOJ to not be proper or efficient when going after those bad actors that are continuously making the world worse (climate, greed, polarization) but I lay blame on different parts of a shitty system. You blame foreign intelligence and inside actors (there's a Venn diagram somewhere where we start to overlap).
Sounds to me like a perfect recipe to round up and arrest a bunch of traitors to American principles. Was the thought trump would just shut up and quietly go away if we kept biding time or he lost another election. What, if anything, about trumps character would make anyone think that. 100% the government just dropped the ball on this. They won with trump in the opposition and wanted to time it well enough to win again and have him divide and weaken the republicans.