What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Josquius]

Page 666.

From a ukraine /military telegram channel I follow, I found it interesting.

TRUMP IS THE AID KILLER

Have no doubt in your mind that the reason the House will not approve aid to Ukraine is entirely down to Donald Trump.
Over the past week he has actively communicated with the leaders and members of both the Senate and House, to make sure a dramatic (and a very Republican dream) of acute immigration and border security reforms doesn't take place. Without that deal Ukraine will get no aid, because Republican law makers tied its passage to getting their own way on the very reforms they now have in their hands.
They, because Trump has made it clear this is what he wants, are throwing away that chance to pass what for them is a dream ticket of immigration and border control reforms that haven't been seen since the 1980's. They are dramatic and even draconian measures that are almost beyond their wildest dreams.
But Trump doesn't want the problem solved. He wants to campaign on it and win the election in November because his inate racist mentality, tied to his scapegoating anyone different, his dehumanising of a human crisis that's genuinely affecting American daily life, is more important than getting a result. He sees it as a winning card.
And he hates Ukraine. His behaviour over supplying aid to Ukraine only if Ukraine supplied dirt on Hunter Biden, was what led to his first impeachment. He never forgives or forgets such slights.
So, even though the majority of republicans and democrats support aid to Ukraine, it's not in Trump's personal interest to allow it.
Trump in Trump world, comes first. The suffering on the border, the suffering in America because of what has happened on the border (a border he failed to ever control after 4 years in office), must give way to Trumps personal needs.
And the Russians know it. They devoted an entire half hour talk show segment to it, trying to explain the situation as best they could. For them Trump is 'all talk and nothing happens' but if he stops aid for good, that fine, 'The Russian army will do the rest'.
Trump is a traitor to America, he's little more in effect than a Russian operative. If he wins, Russia wins. We all know it even if we don't want to believe it.
That I should live to see the day America turns its back on the world and its own future as a major power? It's almost beyond comprehension. But that will be Trump's legacy. He must not win a second term.

Very curious idea that trump doesn't want these dumb immigration reforms.
I have suspected it's just performance but it's interesting to think what would happen if the dems did give in - might this be viable? Let it happen short term, get aid for Ukraine and fuck trumps campaigning, then make things sensible next year?

[crazy canuck]

Filed under no shit Sherlock

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Jake Bro mentioned that a few days ago

[grumbler]

Very curious idea that trump doesn't want these dumb immigration reforms.
I have suspected it's just performance but it's interesting to think what would happen if the dems did give in - might this be viable? Let it happen short term, get aid for Ukraine and fuck trumps campaigning, then make things sensible next year?

There's no way that the Republicans will pass any immigration reform before the election (and not likely afterwards, either) because it is, they believe, a winning electoral issue for them so long as it never gets solved. Even if the Democrats caved and gave them everything they wanted, the Republicans still would not pass the legislation and have pretty much admitted as much.

[Tamas]

Very curious idea that trump doesn't want these dumb immigration reforms.
I have suspected it's just performance but it's interesting to think what would happen if the dems did give in - might this be viable? Let it happen short term, get aid for Ukraine and fuck trumps campaigning, then make things sensible next year?

There's no way that the Republicans will pass any immigration reform before the election (and not likely afterwards, either) because it is, they believe, a winning electoral issue for them so long as it never gets solved. Even if the Democrats caved and gave them everything they wanted, the Republicans still would not pass the legislation and have pretty much admitted as much.

IT's the same with Orban and immigration in the EU. He keeps using it as UTMOST URGENT ISSUE, then proceeds to torpedo each and every attempt to resolve it.

[Josquius]

Very curious idea that trump doesn't want these dumb immigration reforms.
I have suspected it's just performance but it's interesting to think what would happen if the dems did give in - might this be viable? Let it happen short term, get aid for Ukraine and fuck trumps campaigning, then make things sensible next year?

There's no way that the Republicans will pass any immigration reform before the election (and not likely afterwards, either) because it is, they believe, a winning electoral issue for them so long as it never gets solved. Even if the Democrats caved and gave them everything they wanted, the Republicans still would not pass the legislation and have pretty much admitted as much.

How could they do this though?
If the Dems do decide to give them everything they wanted, will they go full 1984 and insist they never asked for that?

[Syt]

Very curious idea that trump doesn't want these dumb immigration reforms.
I have suspected it's just performance but it's interesting to think what would happen if the dems did give in - might this be viable? Let it happen short term, get aid for Ukraine and fuck trumps campaigning, then make things sensible next year?

There's no way that the Republicans will pass any immigration reform before the election (and not likely afterwards, either) because it is, they believe, a winning electoral issue for them so long as it never gets solved. Even if the Democrats caved and gave them everything they wanted, the Republicans still would not pass the legislation and have pretty much admitted as much.

Wasn't that thought to be the case with Roe v Wade, too?

[Jacob]

Overturning Roe vs Wade was a supreme court decision, not legislation that had to be passed - so it's a bit of a different situation I think.

[Sheilbh]

Yesh - and it's also been the primary goal of the conservative legal movement for at least the last 30 years (if not the last 50).

[grumbler]

Overturning Roe vs Wade was a supreme court decision, not legislation that had to be passed - so it's a bit of a different situation I think.

I think he means the repeal/limit on RvW movement in the Republican party so popular with the base, that was never going to get acted on because it was such a useful tool for whipping up a right-wing frenzy when such was desired.  I agree with him if that was his take.

[Syt]

It was. It seemed to me it was a useful wedge issue to get people mobilized and potentially more useful if it remained status quo.

[Barrister]

It was. It seemed to me it was a useful wedge issue to get people mobilized and potentially more useful if it remained status quo.

GOP were totally the dog that caught the car on abortion.  They had no idea what to do once R v W was repealled, so they were trapped by their base to pass a series of bills that quite hurt them in 2022.

[jimmy olsen]

Things continue to get worse for Trump in the fraud trail

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/01/politics/trump-former-finance-chief-alan-weisselberg-perjury-charge/index.html

CNN
 —
The former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization is in talks to potentially plead guilty to a perjury charge related to a civil investigation into the real estate company's finances, people familiar with the matter said.

Allen Weisselberg, the former CFO, is in negotiations with the Manhattan district attorney's office, but the talks are in the early stages and a deal has not been finalized, the people said. The potential charges relate to testimony Weisselberg gave in an interview with the New York attorney general's office and at the related civil fraud trial of former President Donald Trump last year, one of the people said.

The talks could fall apart without a deal being reached.

If Weisselberg does reach a deal to plead guilty, it would be the second plea from Trump's former longtime lieutenant, who in 2022 pleaded guilty to 15 criminal charges related to tax fraud and served 100 days in New York City's Rikers Island jail. He testified at the criminal tax fraud trial of two Trump Organization entities, which were convicted and fined.

As part of the current deal under negotiation, the people said, Weisselberg is not cooperating against his former boss and is not expected to be called as a witness in the criminal trial scheduled to start next month.

Trump was indicted on 34 counts of felony counts of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to reimburse his former attorney for making payments to bury allegations of an affair before the 2016 presidential election. Trump has denied the affair and has pleaded not guilty to the charges. A number of Trump associates were called before the grand jury to give testimony, but Weisselberg was not among them.

Weisselberg's attorney, Seth Rosenberg, could not immediately be reached for comment. A spokesperson for Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, declined to comment.

The New York Times first reported that Weisselberg was in talks with prosecutors to resolve the investigation.

The district attorney's office has pressured Weisselberg for months about potential charges related to insurance fraud and perjury.

It isn't clear which statements Weisselberg would agree were false testimony. Weisselberg, who is also a defendant in the civil fraud lawsuit, was called as a witness by the New York attorney general's office and testified at the trial last year. He was grilled over how the Trump Organization's financial statements were composed and how they derived values for Trump's properties.

The New York attorney general's office is seeking more than $370 million in disgorgement from Trump as well as a ban from doing business in the state. A judge is expected to issue his findings this month.

[jimmy olsen]

WTF. How can they not search every room?

https://abcnews.go.com/US/special-counsel-questioned-witnesses-2-rooms-fbi-search/story?id=106826552

Special counsel questioned witnesses about 2 rooms FBI didn't search inside Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence: Sources
The FBI missed the rooms in their search for classified documents, said sources.

Special counsel Jack Smith's team has questioned several witnesses about a closet and a so-called "hidden room" inside former President Donald Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago that the FBI didn't check while searching the estate in August 2022, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

As described to ABC News, the line of questioning in several interviews ahead of Trump's indictment last year on classified document charges suggests that -- long after the FBI seized dozens of boxes and more than 100 documents marked classified from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate -- Smith's team was trying to determine if there might still be more classified documents there.

According to sources, some investigators involved in the case came to later believe that the closet, which was locked on the day of the search, should have been opened and checked.

As investigators would later learn, Trump allegedly had the closet's lock changed while his attorney was in Mar-a-Lago's basement, searching for classified documents in a storage room that he was told would have all such documents. Trump's alleged efforts to conceal classified documents from both the FBI and his own attorney are a key part of Smith's indictment against Trump in Florida.

Jordan Strauss, a former federal prosecutor and former national security official in the Justice Department, called the FBI's alleged failure to search the closet "a bit astonishing."

"You're searching a former president's house. You [should] get it right the first time," Strauss told ABC News.

In addition to the closet, the FBI also didn't search what authorities have called a "hidden room" connected to Trump's bedroom, sources said.

Smith's investigators were later told that, in the days right after the search, some of Trump's employees heard that the FBI had missed at least one room at Mar-a-Lago, the sources said.

According to a senior FBI official, agents focused on areas they believed might have government documents.

"Based on information gathered throughout the course of the investigation, areas were identified and searched pursuant to the search warrant," the official told ABC News.

Within a few months of the FBI's search, federal prosecutors in the Justice Department pushed Trump's legal team to ensure that no classified documents remained at any of Trump's properties, but it's unclear if those prosecutors or any Trump lawyers even knew about the unexamined spaces then.

It's also unclear if Trump ever kept any classified documents in either of those spaces, or whether Smith's team ever considered seeking another warrant to search Mar-a-Lago again.

In their questioning of witnesses, Smith's team seemed to focus more on the missed spaces in the three months before first indicting Trump in the case, sources said.

Reached by ABC News, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign criticized President Joe Biden and the news media, saying the investigations into Trump are "just desperate attempts at election interference ... to stop the presumptive Republican nominee for President."

'Rigorous and professional'
Strauss, who served in the Justice Department from 2005 to 2016, said he was particularly surprised to hear about the FBI's alleged inaction considering how "exceptionally thorough" he said they usually are and how meticulously they planned for the Mar-a-Lago search ahead of time.

Testifying before Congress last year, FBI Director Chris Wray noted that agents conducting the search even wore casual clothes to Mar-a-Lago -- rather than the more common "raid jackets" -- so they wouldn't draw too much attention.

Wray assured lawmakers that in such "sensitive" investigations, "Our folks take great pains to be rigorous [and] professional."

But when agents reached the locked closet near the front of Trump's residence, they couldn't locate a key for it and were told the space behind the door -- an old stairwell turned into a closet with shelves -- went nowhere, so they decided not to break it open, sources said

Sources also told ABC News that FBI agents didn't do more in part because they felt like they had been at Mar-a-Lago long enough. But the senior FBI official disputed that, saying, "Discussions took place that day about additional areas of the property and it was determined that actions already taken met the parameters of the search warrant."

"[The FBI] is almost notorious for their relentlessness and follow-through," Strauss said.

At the time, the FBI didn't know the lock change -- at least in their view -- could have been potentially significant, sources said.

According to the indictment against Trump, after Trump received a federal subpoena demanding the return of all classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, his attorney -- identified to ABC News as Evan Corcoran -- was told to look for any responsive documents in boxes stacked inside a basement storage room.

But in the days before Corcoran arrived at Mar-a-Lago on June 2, 2022, Trump aide Walt Nauta -- acting "at Trump's direction" -- moved more than 30 boxes from the storage room to Trump's residence, so the attorney never even saw many of Trump's boxes, according to the indictment.

Corcoran found 38 classified documents in the storage room and gave them to the FBI, but Trump ensured that "many documents responsive to the [subpoena] could not be found," the indictment alleges.

Through their investigation, Smith's team learned that while Corcoran was still in the storage room, Trump asked a longtime Mar-a-Lago employee to change the lock on the closet, sources said. For years, the lock on the closet was managed by the Secret Service, but on June 2, 2022, Trump had it changed and wanted the key, the sources said.

One former maintenance worker described Trump's request as unusual, according to the sources.

Unlike the locked closet, the FBI didn't even know the so-called "hidden room" existed until after they left Mar-a-Lago, sources said.

Though agents searched Trump's bedroom, a small door in one of the walls was concealed behind a large dresser and a big TV, sources said. The space behind the wall was the "hidden room," which maintenance workers sporadically entered to access cables running through it, sources said.

Strauss said it's not uncommon for agents executing search warrants to miss some things, especially when they're searching expansive properties.

Nevertheless, the fact that witnesses were saying the FBI missed a "hidden room" within Trump's bedroom caught the attention of Smith's team, according to sources.

'Bathrooms and bedrooms'
A federal judge had signed off on the search of Mar-a-Lago, approving the FBI's plan to search Trump's office and "all storage rooms and any other rooms or locations where boxes or records may be stored."

During their search, they allegedly found 27 classified documents in Trump's office and 75 more in the basement storage room, where Corcoran had searched two months earlier and found a smaller set of other apparently classified documents, according to the indictment against Trump.

The FBI did not find classified documents in any ballroom, bathroom, or in Trump's bedroom, where he allegedly stored classified documents at times over the year-and-a-half after leaving the White House.

During the summer of the FBI search, Trump was primarily living at his property in Bedminster, New Jersey. The FBI didn't search that property -- it only searched Mar-a-Lago.

As ABC News previously reported, within months of the FBI search, the Justice Department suspected Trump was still holding classified documents somewhere, so -- under pressure from the department -- one of Trump's attorneys conducted another search of Mar-a-Lago and other properties, and he found a handful of more classified documents.

In his testimony to Congress last year, Wray said that, under "specific rules," there are only certain locations that can securely store classified information, "and in my experience, ballrooms, bathrooms and bedrooms are not" among them.

"Our folks in this case have proceeded honorably and in strict compliance with our policies, our rules, and our best practices," Wray added.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing, insisting he did not break the law by holding onto the documents later seized by the FBI. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Nauta, the aide who allegedly helped move Trump's boxes, and Mar-a-Lago's property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, have also been charged for their alleged roles in Trump's conspiracy. Both have pleaded not guilty.

[Jacob]

So apparently Trump has just been fined a little more than $350 million in NY.

Thoughts on the consequences?