The former is literally the real legal system, nothing shadow about it. Shadow would be some hidden deal to drop charges or something.
It's also not DDOS when a huge part of what you call "real" is exactly the same, so not unwillingly overloaded but willingly complicit.
No, this is literally a "both sides" issue. Lawfare is not new. See the continuous legal battles over the second amendment in states like NY, NJ, and CA.
> Two other judges, John Higgitt and Llinét Rosado, said James had the authority to bring the case but argued for giving Trump a new trial. And the fifth judge, Justice David Friedman, argued to throw out the case, saying James lacked the authority to bring it.
The reason a democrat would be involved in such prosecution is because every GOP member has effectively sworn fealty to Trump and they will fiercely protect him from any accountability.
Biden was many things, but not corrupt in the sense that Trump is. Yes, his son did business trading on his relationship but that was legal (albeit distasteful).
Most dem voters dislike corruption, even if it's one of their team; I don't see that on the other side of the aisle. Disclaimer: I am not a dem.
If you're talking about the criminal case, it's even worse, as CNN's chief legal correspondent explained: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-convicted-... ("Most importantly, the DA's charges against Trump push the outer boundaries of the law and due process."). Or, as an MSNBC legal columnist explained: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-guilty-hus... ("Most DAs wouldn’t have pursued this case against Trump. Alvin Bragg got lucky. Let’s be honest with each other. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump was convoluted.").
You could write an entire Harvard law review issue about the novel legal issues raised by the Trump criminal case: Can a state crime be predicted on an uncharged federal campaign finance violation? can someone violate campaign finance law--which is focused on preventing candidates from misusing donated funds--by using their own money to pay off a porn star? Can you bootstrap a misdemeanor into a felony through a triple-bank-shot involving an uncharged secondary crime and a choice of three possible tertiary crimes? When you prosecute someone for a business records misdemeanor, but almost all the allegedly bad conduct relates to unspecified secondary and tertiary crimes, how do you instruct the jury? When you give the jury three different options of uncharged tertiary crimes to support the uncharged secondary crime, which in turn supports the charged primary crime, on what points must the jury reach a unanimous decision?
Google's and Apple's "Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich" was a more straightforward legal theory than the Trump criminal case.
1. Trump is the epitome of a corrupt pol and has pretty much gotten away with everything his entire life.
2. Prosecuting him was not in the form of of attacking a rival, it was addressing issue #1
3. If the roles were reversed and this was Biden we were talking about, most dem voters would still be for prosecution of blatant corruption. The magic of Trump is that his supporters (which apparently you are one of) are fine with him doing anything he wants, up to and including shooting someone on Fifth Ave
Another example is the Mackey case, where the appeals court unanimously overturned the entire conviction, attacking both the legal reasoning and the evidence underlying the entire case. It’s pretty clear the whole thing was cooked up to “get” an influential pro-Trump Twitter user. See: https://ww3.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/5d7bf858-ff...
You're correct about (2), and that's the problem! A criminal case that relies on an uncharged secondary crime, which in turn relies on one of three uncharged tertiary crimes, to bootstrap a primary misdemeanor into a felony must stand on its own. Uncharged, unproven past conduct is irrelevant.
> magic of Trump is that his supporters (which apparently you are one of)
My wife and I are Fed Soc members, but we like the Georgetown cocktail parties and voted for Biden in 2020! We weren't going to vote in 2024 until the Trump criminal conviction. It was literally radicalizing. My wife used to loathe Trump, but she drove up to Pennsylvania to volunteer for his campaign after that conviction came down.
The legal system bends to those in power and "justice" occasionally makes an appearance.
Meanwhile the DOJ has been weaponized to serve as the president's personal attack dogs and the entirety of the federal workforce is being staffed with only those who swear fealty to Trump, rather than the constitution and what it stands for.
IANAL, and I'm not equipped to review whatever legal fancy footwork is involved, but I am 100% confident that the Biden admin was as stand up as could be hoped for (i.e., flawed but not devoid of principles), and that Trump has only these principles:
* self-enrichment
* self-aggrandizement
* deflection of any criticism or culpability
What rubs salt into the wound is that tens of millions of my fellow citizens literally worship him as a gift from God and will defend him to the end. Watching democracy die before my eyes is beyond heartbreaking.
"Trump corrupt" !=> "this case was sound."
I also provided an example of the Mackey case, where the DoJ was weaponized to go after Trump supporters on Twitter.
I don't like the twitter case and think it was a mistake. Not as bad as the case that drove Aaron Swartz to suicide (under the Obama admin).
But to lecture on the propriety of the prosecution and declare that it was "weaponized" is a stretch. The feds have made plenty of bad decisions across both sides of the aisle, and their intentions should always be worthy of scrutiny.
The DOJ (and every other federal agency) is being gutted of anyone who does not swear fealty to Donald Trump (the person, not the office) -- that's weaponization.
I'm happy to call out each and every mistake the Biden admin does, but it's almost quaint in comparison to what his successor is doing. We've moved well past the "both sides" debate -- what is happening now is fascism and un-American to it's core. So yeah, boo hoo about the twitter case.
The 6 members of SCOTUS who are of your ilk are the exact enablers of our subject of discussion.
And yet you dodge #1. How artful. Now I know that you've not been engaging in good faith, either intentionally or just how Fed Soc taught you.
No shit.
You're a case study in radicalization by this point and one that I follow with some morbid fascination. If you, an intelligent lawyer and son of an immigrant can be radicalized to the point that you are cheering on the people who would be more than happy to deport you and most of your family on the basis of your skin color alone without any kind of due process can be radicalized then anybody can be radicalized, including me and that is a very sobering thought.
I sincerely hope that when this is all over you are still living where you do and that you and yours get through this in one piece but I would hate to be in your shoes when - if - the moment comes that you realize you are on a very dangerous path. Note that your strengths - intelligence, knowledge of the law - are being used against you.
I've seen a similar thing happen with two close friends who after 9/11 fell in with the wrong crowd and turned into 'truthers'. They were both very smart but also apparently quite gullible and they and their fellows were pushing each other ever further down into the hole.
I wrote about them:
https://jacquesmattheij.com/2020-12-19-complot-theory-believ...
Since then, after burning up all of their friendships they moved to the heartland of Australia where they are now prepping for the end times.
Sometimes it doesn't take much for a person to be radicalized and the way out is a lot more difficult than the way in.
Based! I can just picture Kash finishing the job by deporting the last remaining immigrant: himself.
Regardless, it’s telling that we were talking about legal theories but you couldn’t keep out that intrusive thought about my skin color and immigration background.
I didn't "dodge" it. I explained it was irrelevant. The conduct for which Trump was convicted was having a payment to Stormy Daniels recorded in the books of his family owned company as "legal expenses" instead of "hush money." To turn that into a felony, prosecutors invoked several other uncharged crimes--which means they didn't have to prove them--in a triple-bank-shot legal theory so convoluted it's best explained with charts: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/charting-the-legal-theo.... The prosecution never clearly articulated the exact legal theory, but what comes closest to their trial presentation is something like:
1) Violation of New York records law (175.05). But this is a misdemeanor. To step it up to a felony, you need to prove that the records were misrecorded to cover up a second crime.
2) Stepping (1) up to a felony based on New York Election Law 17-152, which makes it illegal to influence an election by "unlawful means," which requires a third crime. According to the press: "Attorneys specializing in state election law believe the statute has never been prosecuted." https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-hush-money-case-relies.... Moreover, the prosecutors never actually charged this crime, meaning they didn't need to prove all the elements.
3) Supporting (2) based on violation of federal campaign finance law. Notably, the FEC, which is charged with administering federal election law, had declined to bring any charges against Trump in connection with the Stormy Daniels payoff. Prosecutors also never actually charged this crime, meaning they didn't need to prove all the elements.
The prosecution also threw out two alternative crimes for (2), and the judge then instructed the jury that they didn't need to be unanimous as to which other crimes the business records were doctored to cover up.
The merits of this prosecution are entirely about the legal theory and the legally relevant facts. Whatever else you think Trump did is completely irrelevant. That's one of the few things Fed Soc folks and liberals agree on. If the target of this prosecution had been a child-trafficking kingpin, the lawyers at my former white shoe firm would be lining up to take on the multiple Supreme Court cases that would come out of challenging this prosecution.
> Fed Soc, eh? I'm shocked you'd consider Biden as everything I see about the org is as a right wing networking club, culminating in ownership of SCOTUS.
Fed Soc has far more Democrats than your typical non-ideological lawyer's organization (e.g. the American Bar Association) has Republicans. It's just lawyers who aren't feelers, and those are on both sides of the aisle.
There was a time that I looked up to you, but that time is definitely past.
As for KP: he is just an even more extreme example of the same thing.
Hey now, my interpretation of legal issues has been narrow since I was a law student. My second-year administrative law class used Gary Lawson's textbook (https://fedsoc.org/contributors/gary-lawson). The seminal cases all had notes after them along the lines of "isn't this clearly unconstitutional?" I remember nodding along and getting angry that the mid-20th century Supreme Court had fucked up the Constitution so badly.
So, no, I don't care that Trump is dismantling an administrative state that shouldn't exist in the first place. Despotism is not when the President fires Department of Education bureaucrats. It's when the President tells you what you can and cannot build on your own land. So far, Trump hasn't been doing that.
Putting all that aside, I'm perfectly fine for you to attack me as a constitutional Taliban. But why bring my skin color into it?
As opposed to what is happening right now?
Do you think Trump is fixing the constitution somehow? He's all but wiping his ass with it.
> So, no, I don't care that Trump is dismantling an administrative state that shouldn't exist in the first place.
He's not just dismantling an administrative state. He's wrecking your countries' institutions left, right and center and those institutions are the glue that kept the country alive and together. It kept you healthy, educated and employed.
> Despotism is not when the President fires Department of Education bureaucrats. It's when the President tells you what you can and cannot build on your own land.
I don't think that matters much when your land is bought at firesale prices right out from under you because otherwise you won't be able to make ends meet. The manufactured crisis you are going through right now is redistributing wealth at a fantastic rate. And guess who is on the receiving side.
> But why bring my skin color into it?
Because unless you are living under a rock it should be painfully clear by now that you've voted massively against your own interests. Skin color is exactly the thing that this administration seems to be using as the distinguishing factor between the 'in' and the 'out' groups and that does not change because there are a couple of convenient exceptions. Or do you think giving White South Africans a speedrun through US immigration is an accident of chance?
Maybe you think that you too will be one of the exceptions but more and more people are finding out that they too voted against their own interests. This doesn't stop just with illegals, criminals, immigrants or homeless people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump
Have a look there and then look through that lens at the last six months. See a pattern?
It's racism as one major theme and probably misogynist overtones as another. The last thing Trump has respect for is the law (whether private, constitutional or criminal does not seem to matter much) unless it is as a tool to exact revenge.
That a lawyer would support the man whose own lawyer needed a lawyer and ended up convicted is already weird enough.
Well, some food for thought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOAl8EYlz1s
Recently someone commented to me that the whole point of the tariffs is to curb consumerism in the United States, without further explanation when asked where they got that outlandish idea from. There is no point in arguing anymore, it is literally a waste of time...it's so sad to see obviously intelligent people fall for for this, even against their own interest as you mentioned.
What keeps America alive and together is the virtue of the average American, not counter-democratic "institutions." America was a stable democracy from the beginning long before we had any of these institutions. I'd trade every Ivy-league grad in the world in all the most august institutions for a million ordinary Iowans.
>> > But why bring my skin color into it?
> Because unless you are living under a rock it should be painfully clear by now that you've voted massively against your own interests.
But that wasn't relevant to our discussion. Why are you so fixated on the racial angle that you brought it up in unrelated conversation? Why does it feature so prominently in your mental model of Trump?
There's so much to criticize Trump about! A lot of the COVID-era inflation was Trump's fault thanks to those Trump checks. You could provide a stirring defense of free trade. RJK, Jr. is a kook! Anything that doesn't put you in the untenable position of arguing that the non-whites in the U.S. aren't as smart as you in knowing their own interests.
Ok, so you're just trolling. Fine. It is not funny.
> Anything that doesn't put you in the untenable position of arguing that the non-whites in the U.S. aren't as smart as you in knowing their own interests.
I have six months of evidence and I think that is enough. I'll happily collect another 6 months and we'll see how you are going to twist to justify whatever they'll do between now and then. Prediction: it won't be good. Best of luck.
if we take the results of 2016 and 2024, then our "virtue" is on life support lol, still this is an inspiring speech and I'm honored to quote it and I thank you for writing it, hacker news thrives on good content like this.
>counter-democratic "institutions."
the US is very big, and a government is going to have a civil service, hopefully that span administrations as is often the norm, institutional knowledge is a thing. Obviously yes, some folks hate that shit.
>America was a stable democracy from the beginning long before we had any of these institutions.
history has entered the chat
> I'd trade every Ivy-league grad in the world in all the most august institutions for a million ordinary Iowans.
oh man, reminds me of my IT days, like database consistency was always some "ivory tower thinking", I hated 3 am troubleshooting sessions, especially since I was locked out of the bugfest that caused them. gives me flashbacks! you could literally be my boss lol
>Why does it feature so prominently in your mental model of Trump?
yeah, racism features prominently in my mental model of trump too. I think its part of the "reputation" part of reputation, resume and rapsheet.
I find the exact same reaction in anti-vaxxers and people of faith. Try to get a religious person to recognize the folly of their faith -- it only makes them stronger.
I think there's two paths of resistance that might help:
1. Concise messaging
2. Mockery and humor
A prime example of this is anti-abortionists labeling themselves as "Pro-life". Who doesn't love life? And babies? Then there's "entitlements" for public insurance programs. Death taxes for estate taxes. And for our esteemed council in this debate, "Law and Order". And so on...
I don't have any easy or immediate remedy here, but I believe this path needs to be followed to help sway hearts and minds.
And for #2 (poop!), most people are vulnerable to the sting of mockery, certainly evidenced by how Diaper Don himself lashes out when made fun of. We need more of that, and more for the Deplorables who worship him. Yes, there needs to be a parallel track of trying to be nice and inviting, but we are literally at war for the survival of democracy in the United States (the civil war never ended -- the south had their fingers crossed when they surrendered).
Another unfortunate note: this war is also waged by religious fundamentalists (and white nationalists), and while I respect an individual's right to their own worship, we should be vigilant in pointing out that: "Religion is like a penis. It's nice to have one and fine to be proud of. Don't whip it out in public or shove it down someone else's throat"
As you are proudly a Fed Soc member, are you also a follower of Jesus? From the makeup of your compatriots in SCOTUS, I'm guessing you're a devout Catholic. Does your faith inform you in your voting?