Imagine being this genius' lawyer
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A plausible sounding article I read stated that his lawyers knew from the start that they didn't have a chance of winning anyway. This whole thing is just theater to try and stall as long as possible to buy time until the election.
I'm sure they've already got plans to cheat their way to a "victory" on that front as well.
But also taking time to give him a proper trial ensures that the final ruling is constitutional and can't risk being declared a mistrial later on.
His own lawyers declined to question him lmao Knew he'd just make things even worse.
Isn't it pretty typical for defendents to not take the stand?
This is a civil, not criminal trial. Can't self incriminate if it's not a criminal trial, so the 5th amendment doesn't apply (not sure how it works if there's other trials ongoing with cross interest in testimony).
The fifth Amendment would not apply to the allegations in the civil complaint. It's still applies to his testimony with regard to uncharged criminal conduct. In other words, he cannot be required to testify in the civil case to something that would incriminate him in an uncharged criminal matter. At least that's my understanding as an attorney, however, I admit I never have to deal with this issue and the one time it almost came up, the other lawyer never asked my witness the right questions.
Hope they got paid up front...
Narrator: “they didn’t.”
(Which really goes to show how incompetent they are.)
Only people Trump ever paid on time, or at all, was businesses connected to the Russian Mob.
exactly. which is why competent lawyers are staying away. Even moderately incompetent ones would demand payment upfront.
Only lawyers willing to take up trumps case, are people who think the fame of being associated with him will benefit them in the future.
Which says all you need to know about their intellectual capacity.
I'm beginning to think MAGA stands for make attorneys get aneurisms.
Make Attorneys Get Attorneys
Sure, that's already happened. Watching Trump jeopardize Chris Kise's legal career with games on the stand tho.... This may be the first time a defense attorney just pops a blood vessel wanting to scream "SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU'RE MAKING IT WORSE YOU RIDICULOUS FUCKNUT"
Great quote from a Slate op-ed: “You can often protect your client against the government, but you can never protect him against himself.”
The thing I love most about this article is this one throw-away little line right here:
He ... claims that all of his legal troubles amount to "election interference" as he campaigns in the 2024 presidential election.
It just illustrates who Trump is so well. First, he hears a term that he doesn't understand, like: "election interference". Like what he did when he incited his cult of morons to attack the capitol during January 6th to prevent Congress from certifying the election. Then, he takes that term that he doesn't understand and uses it improperly to insinuate that that's what's being done to him. This is either because he's too dumb to know what it means and too stubborn to look it up, or because he believes that about his cultists.
This is the exact same playbook he used for "puppet" during his debates with Hillary, "Fake news" when he was campaigning, "witch hunt" when he was being investigated for impeachable offenses, etc.
The man is a complete god damned moron, and yet somehow, he's managed to figure out that a significant number of Americans are even dumber than he is, and he has become their messiah. It's awe-inducing.
This is what fascists do. They co-opt the language of their political opponents, and divorce any meaning from the word.
The strategy is to deny their opponents the vocabulary they need to organize. This is part of the same strategy as burning books that teach black history and banning students from saying the word gay.
They never taught their slaves how to read either
That's not Trump not understanding what things mean, that's modern Republican messaging strategy. MTG literally just called a protest Tlaib led "an insurrection" last week. They water down words until they have no meaning anymore, and explicitly accuse the other side of what they're doing to feed the "both sides" narrative, and take weight off genuine accusations from Democrats or the media. They've been doing it for a while. They've also done it with "weaponization of government" recently and a few other words and phrases I can't think of right now. This is why people talk about Republicans being hypocrites and "projecting". They do it very much on purpose.
He's watering down the terms. "Fake news" is a perfect example. He completely stole the term and directed attention away from all the literally fake news websites created to help his election.
You don't have to be smart to be a conman. And being not the brightest bulb in any room, might actually help Trump doing what he does best (conning people): ethical or non gullible people are very quickly put off by him, leaving him surrounded by unethical people who have no qualms enabling him (as long as they believe that they stand to gain from it) + gullible people that can be milked for all their worth. This is why it was such a smart move for Trump to leave the democratic party and become a republican: the republican party loves gullible voters + unethical fellow travellers. Basically the same reasoning as to why spam phishing mail is so obvious usually: scammers don't want to waste their time on non gullible people.
This is why Jerry Falwell approached Ronald Reagan: they both loved money, power, and authority that those provide. Falwell provided Reagan with millions of followers who had been brainwashed from birth to blindly obey a male authority figure. Hence, the modern Republican Party: millions of "Christians" whose beliefs are diametrically opposed to the teachings of their God. Cognitive dissonance at it's finest.
He's a moron's idea of an intelligent man.
He's genius is in his ability to market himself. the fact that he is a moron just means he's often stumbling on stupid shit that will resonate with morons, and he has that keen sense to take advantage of it.
Trump's defense strategy: "No, YOU!"
Why is this colossal? The judge already ruled he committed fraud, are we pretending that he lied about his finances to convince ponies to let him brush their hair? What other intent could there be besides getting more money?
Now they don’t have to prove his intent. It just makes the case that much easier; no way the defense can raise questions about errors or revisions.
Not that it would matter much, but it basically eliminates any possibility of arguments around it, futile as they may be. Which means there’ll be no time wasted on it (or at most, less time wasted on it).
Just because something seems obvious doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary to prove it.
Fair enough, time certainly is of the essence in these cases. We got about a year to put this man somewhere he can't hurt anyone else.
Ianal but I expect this admission also materially harms any relief Trump may seek on appeal...
Hard to claim it's a witch hunt when you admit guilt of the accused fraud under oath.
It proves the element of intent for the remaining six charges, including conspiracy.
Stable genius strikes again.
So colossal, we didn't include it in the headline!
That's how I know this is a big nothing-burger.
I'm sure his lawyers will just argue that all financial representations to a lender are intended to get the lender to lend you money. That's the whole point. Why else would you give them the info? The real problem will be getting him to directly admit intentionally fraud.
Oh summary bot…
I read most of it. The summary in the post is all you need. The article just restates it a bunch and shares Twitter posts.