Trump says it was 'my decision' to try to overturn 2020 election results | CNN Politics

Oh, no… he still claimed it was rigged even after he won because he lost the popular election/ didn’t win in a landslide.

And he called the 2016 GOP primaries rigged also when he lost one. Everything Trump loses is rigged. If he wins, but doesn't win by as much as he wanted to, then it's rigged also.

At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if he thought merely having a non-Trump name on the ballot counted as "rigging." Trump's ideal ballot would be "do you want (a) Trump for President or (b) to be imprisoned for life?"

He was still declaring it rigged afterwards. Probably just softening people up for 2020.

I mean. There's always been a very different justice system for the rich v poor. I'm not expecting much. Slap on the wrist, a little community service that he can pawn off or do in some cushy way. Maybe I'm setting my hopes low, so as to avoid the fall of it does actually turn out that way.

I would caution you against having any expectations.

Certainly does feel like a pivotal time in the republic doesn't it?

The big problem is that he still has influence over people that will cause trouble in streets if something happens to him. Not different to that time Mexico had to let go of El Chapo's son because cartel soldiers started causing trouble to get him back. Any other nobody could have their rights violated left and right and no one would stand up for them. If the government tries to do something and then has an uprising it proves they don't have a monopoly on violence and that could have other knock on political effects.

Case in point why solidarity is so powerful and unions are fought tooth and nail. These alt right guys are just too far in to deal with the normal tools of the state.

What did he say though? In the text quotes he just says he decided that the election was rigged, he doesn't say that he knew those claims were false.

You can't be a republican without being some combination of stupid or evil.

And I don't just mean stupid colloquially as "people I don't like" but more specifically as "incapable of looking at facts and drawing reasonable conclusions from them."

Trump's quote there happened before Tarrio's conviction, otherwise I would love for you to be right.

Edit: my mistake, it did not.

I agree that he ought to be disqualified from holding office per the 14th Amendment, however I doubt it will apply.

U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 3:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

I've bolded the parts which might apply to Trump.

executive or judicial officer of any State

He was an Executive, but not of any State, so he doesn't meet that condition.

officer of the United States

"Officer of the United States" has an established meaning in the constitution as, essentially, "officers appointed by the President" (with approval from the Senate).

U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 2:

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

If we take this list to be exhaustive, then Officers must be appointed by the President and are not elected by the public, therefore the President himself is excluded from the definition of "Officers of the United States".

The Supreme Court has followed this reasoning in the past.

United States v. Mouat, 124 U.S. 303 (1888)

Unless a person in the service of the government, therefore, holds his place by virtue of an appointment by the President or of one of the courts of justice or heads of departments authorized by law to make such an appointment, he is not, strictly speaking, an officer of the United States.

And Justice Roberts has used this reasoning more recently.

Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U.S. 477 (2010):

The diffusion of power carries with it a diffusion of accountability. The people do not vote for the “Officers of the United States.” Art. II, §2, cl. 2. They instead look to the President to guide the “assistants or deputies … subject to his superintendence.”

And finally

having previously taken an oath

The oath taken by those Congress and Officers of the United States (and all others listed in U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 3) is a different oath to the one sworn by the President, and it may be argued that the oath U.S. Const. amend. XIV refers to is explicitly that sworn by members of Congress and other Officers, not the Presidential Oath of Office. (Although this to me is the weakest part of the arguement.)

While I completely agree that by any reasonable standard Trump ought to be disqualified from holding office per the 14th Amendment, it is unfortunately not a reasonable standard that he will be held to. It is this Supreme Court's standard.

It also says to hinder or delay, if that would be taken litteraly then most politicians would be barred from holding office.

We still need the trial, but I think he should have his bond revoked and await trial in jail.

This is America. So no. Republicans get to do what they want.

And furthermore, Susan, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that all four of them habitually smoke marijuana cigarettes...

It would be actually wild if he implicated himself in an actual murder.

I might be giving him too much credibility because it's not like Trump is a fine strategist or anything, but at this point I think he knows he's fucked in court anyway. He already lost this battle so to speak, so I doubt he'll make any sort of effort to help his own case. He'll do what he does best and stir up shit as fast as possible, making the biggest circus imaginable with whatever he can, and insulting the judges and admitting to his crimes is definitely a signature wtf play of his. Another angle is that the case is lost, he knows, and Trump never admit defeat, he'll just double down and pretend it's not a crime because he did it on purpose.

Surely at this point there aren't really any expectations of Trump's lawyers. They just have to file documents for him and tell him when to show up where. Then after a few weeks you just tag out.

The corrupt GA GOP are going to remove Fani Willis. They've invented a committee specifically to do just that.

Jack Smith isn't going to be able to do any lasting damage. Everything about Trump is already known, and Trump's racist jug-hooting base is sticking with him. Findings in a trial will be meaningless for them.

Unless he actually gets sentenced to real prison - which he won't - nothing about this matters.

In all things I yearn for the past. Modern fashions seem to keep on growing more and more debased. I find that even among the splendid pieces of furniture built by our master cabinetmakers, those in the old forms are the most pleasing. And as for writing letters, surviving scraps from the past reveal how superb the phrasing used to be. The ordinary spoken language has also steadily coarsened. People used to say "raise the carriage shafts" "raise it" or "trim it."When they should say, "Let the men of the palace staff stand forth!" they say, "Torches! Let's have some light!" Instead of calling the place where the lectures on the Sutra of the Golden Light are delivered before the emperor "the Hall of the Imperial Lecture," they shorten it to "the Lecture Hal", a deplorable corruption, an old gentleman complained.

? Words have zero meaning anymore.

yeah if you're a fucking moron. the rest of us use these things to communicate for fuck's sake, don't let this idiot ruin language next.

And the word 'aesthetic' ... please add that to the list.

Unfortunately for him "that's not what I meant" is a pretty terrible legal defense since we don't need what he "meant"

If "what it sounds like to a reasonable listener" is "I did the crime, it was my decision, I'm guilty" then he's guilty.

What he meant is irrelevant.

Not sure what you mean connecting Trump to the word “literally.”

I think he's said on tape that he knows he lost the election, so I'd love to see that legal defense

I'll leave that decision up to the prosecutors.

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. The exchange is:

"Were you calling the shots?"
"As to whether or not I thought the election was rigged, yeah it was my decision."

Trump is being charged with conspiracy to prevent the election results from being certified. He's not being charged with lying about election rigging. He can flat out say "yeah I knew I lost I just wanted to lie to people". He's not obligated to tell the truth and it's not why he's in legal trouble.

He would need to have said something about creating a plan to delay or prevent the certification and that lying about the election being rigged was part of that. Prosecutors claim they have this evidence anyways.

Well damn, you're right. Not much meat on that bone, changes nothing. I was so hoping he really fucked up this time, laid down something the prosecution could bite on.

"Did you decide the election was rigged? Ultimately, were you the sole arbiter of that decision?"

"Yes."

And like the man said, if Trump was dumb enough to blame his lawyers, he'd open up a 50-gallon drum of evidence against him.

Cannot wrap my head around how obviously stupid this man is, yet slick as hell with his non-statements. Only thing I can figure is that he's so well practiced in legal trouble that it just rolls off the tongue.

He goes onto say the prosecution can't do much with it because we've already proved Trump's centrality to January 6th and people referred to him as the boss. It's another piece of evidence that they may or may not use but don't need to prove that Trump was the one pulling the strings and making things happen. This is in direct contradiction to him saying that he just listened to his lawyers, did what they said, and thus didn't break the law.

What he believes in his heart has nothing to do with the crimes he's been charged with. He interfered with official processes and concocted a scheme to submit a state of false electors. Believing he was doing what was right has nothing to do with the legality of the charges.

Here's the thing... This new admission doesn't exist in a vacuum. The prosecution have him on tape, when he didn't know he was being recorded, admitting he lost the election. Multiple times, in fact.

So that aspect of the case is open-and-shut: He knew he lost, and he said as much multiple times.

Given that context, his recent statement comes off as an attempt to walk it back, by doubling down on the insane idea that he thought he needed to overturn the election. In making that "defense," he fully admits to trying to overturn it. I fully expect the prosecution to use it as evidence that he did, in fact, commit the crime, while using the earlier recordings as context proving that he did, in fact, know he was committing a crime.

And if he'd only contested the results through the legal means provided for that process instead of riling up a mob to go hang Mike Pence with the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability (if you squint hard enough), he'd have a lot less stress right now.