Trump’s Legal Problems – The Wrongologist

Monday Wake Up Call – July 24, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Avon, NC – July 2023 photo by Donna Cartwright Hayden

We’ve reached a point in our politics where the silly season never ends. The truth is slowly beginning to seep into the public’s consciousness that lifelong scofflaw Donald J. Trump is in deep shit. Wrongo is referring to the slate of trials the Former Guy is facing between now and the 2024 presidential election.

Florida US District Judge Cannon has just set a trial date for Trump’s classified documents case, so we can tally his busy legal schedule. As of now, the first item on the docket happens in October 2023. It is a civil lawsuit alleging he, his adult sons, and the Trump Organization were engaged in a $250 million fraud for inflating the values of his golf courses, hotels, and properties to obtain loans and insurance.

Next in line is the second bite of the apple for E. Jean Carroll. On January 15, 2024, (the same day as the Republican Party’s Iowa caucuses), Trump is again facing off against Carroll who won her last case against him. This time, she is seeking $10 million in damages for repeated attempts by Trump to defame her. The judge recently allowed Carroll to amend her lawsuit over Trump’s 2019 comments to include similar comments he made recently on CNN.

After that, the big trial fireworks begin with a March 25 case, where Trump will face a jury for the first time in a NY criminal case charging him with falsifying business records. The Manhattan district attorney’s office says Trump falsified records to cover up a reimbursement to his former fixer Michael Cohen, who advanced a hush-money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The judge has warned Trump that he is required to attend every day of the trial, potentially keeping him off the campaign trail for a couple of weeks.

Then it’s on to the May 20^th classified documents case in Florida. Judge Cannon has set the classified documents case to begin in a two-week period beginning May 20, 2023. By that time, only a few states will not have voted in caucuses or primaries. By then, it’s likely that Trump will have a commanding lead in the race for the Republican nomination.

We still don’t know if Trump will be indicted on federal charges for attempting to stage a coup to remain in power despite losing the 2020 presidential election. The signs are that he will face more federal charges from Special Prosecutor Jack Smith within a few days or weeks.

Also, state charges in Georgia could come sometime in August. The Fulton County DA is considering bringing racketeering and conspiracy charges in connection with Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

These two trials could both be scheduled before the Florida documents case. And unlike the Florida documents case, they aren’t reliant on classified information which presents almost certain opportunities for delay by Trump’s lawyers.

The Jan 6 federal case will be tried in Washington DC. It would presumably take precedence over the Georgia case. It is likely that the presiding judge will schedule the trial for as soon as is practicable, irrespective of preexisting trial schedules in other cases. Otherwise, it’s hard to see a trial happening before a year from now.

If all of these cases move to a trial, it seems likely that Trump will be in court pretty much continuously from October 2023 (at a minimum) through the end of June 2024. The Republican National Convention is scheduled for mid-July in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But, there’s a real possibility that at least some of these cases will not be resolved by then.

For all of these legal problems, anti-Trump people can do nothing to bring about his conviction in one or more of these cases. This is in now the hands of judges and juries over which we have zero control. It will be more than frustrating to stand helplessly on the sidelines as the trials unfold over the coming year.

And it’s possible that Trump could win some cases, even though on the merits, he doesn’t seem to have a viable defense in any of them. The friendliest jury pool he’s going to face is in the Florida documents case, but the evidence against him is overwhelming and incontrovertible. His best chance is that the judge who previously was absurdly friendly to Trump regarding these same documents, will exclude some evidence or otherwise steer the jurors toward a reasonable doubt. Short of that, he can hope that at least one juror will be MAGA enough to refuse to convict, leading to a hung jury.

The other trials in New York and DC, will have more problematic jury pools for Trump. There’s probably as good a chance that he will lose all of these cases as that he’ll get a hung jury and mistrial in any one of them. Outright acquittals seem impossible because the cases are just too strong.

Time to wake up America! On the legal front all we can do now is hope for victory. To help you wake up watch and listen to Todd Rundgren and Utopia perform “Just One Victory” on their 2018 Reunion Tour. Wrongo never was a fan, although this anthemic song hits the right notes for Trump’s legal battles, and he’s kept his voice even after all these years:

“Give us just one victory, it will be all right”

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – September 25, 2022

Liz Truss’s big bet since taking over as UK prime minister is to lower taxes just like St. Ronnie and Trump did in the US. Said Truss:

“Lower taxes lead to economic growth, there is no doubt in my mind about that,”

Trickle down will work this time, we promise, say UK Conservatives.

The tax reductions will require the UK government to borrow bigly to balance their budget. They hope that there will be so much growth that the UK will make it all back in future tax payments. Just like in the US, the lie is that these tax cuts will pay for themselves! Something that has never happened.

The UK Treasury said that the top personal rate will be cut from 45% to 40%. That will be more beneficial for the wealthy than the majority of British society. Shortly after the cuts were announced on Friday, the pound sank almost 2.6% to its lowest level against the US dollar since 1985. Wrongo hates to quote Larry Summers, but he said this:

“The UK is behaving a bit like an emerging market turning itself into a submerging market…it is pursuing the worst macroeconomic policies of any major country in a long time.”

Bloomberg’s Mark Gongloff tweeted:

“Liz Truss just announced the UK’s biggest giveaway to the rich since 1972, which resulted in an IMF bailout. Now the pound is crashing in the middle of the worst inflation since the 70s. Bold strategy….Let’s see if it pays off.”

It’s hard to believe this will go well with the UK already in a recession. On to cartoons.

Russian men are facing tough choices:

Ukrainian ballot:

Reserves get their orders:

Trump’s building something new in NY:

He says witch hunt a LOT:

The coming election may surprise some people:

Will The GOP Ever Disavow Trump?

The Daily Escape:

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone NP – 2018 photo by dontyakno

Wrongo hasn’t written much about the Trump/Russia investigation. Most of those pieces have shown skepticism about Russian interference in our election process. There is, however, clear evidence that the Trump campaign reached out to the Russians more than 100 times. While that’s unusual, it isn’t on its face, criminal, although the Trump campaign failed to alert the FBI about those contacts.

There are investigations underway by Mueller, the Southern District of NY, and several House committees. Trump has castigated each, calling them a witch hunt and fake news. Nearly all Republicans have sided with him about these multiple investigations.

It isn’t unusual that the GOP is indifferent to the range of possible Trump wrongdoing. On Tuesday, the WaPo’s Greg Sargent helpfully cataloged the things that Republicans in Congress think should not be investigated about Trump by the Democrats in Congress:

Materials relating to any foreign government payments to Trump’s businesses, which might constitute violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause.
Materials that might shed light on Trump’s negotiations about a real estate project in Moscow, which Trump concealed from the voters even after the GOP primaries were in progress. Michael Cohen is going to prison for lying to Congress about the deal.
Parenthetically, and not part of Greg Sergeant’s list, Marcy Wheeler thinks that the most important crime in the Trump era is a probable quid quo pro in which the Russians (and Trump) seemed willing to trade a new Moscow Trump Tower for sanctions relief should Trump win the presidency.
Materials that might show whether Trump’s lawyers had a hand in writing former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s testimony to Congress that falsified the timeline of those negotiations.
Materials that might illuminate/prove Trump’s suspected efforts to obstruct the FBI/Mueller investigation.
Materials that would shed more light on the criminal hush-money schemes that Cohen carried out, allegedly at Trump’s direction, and on Trump’s reimbursement of those payments. These most likely violate campaign finance laws.

Sargent’s list is based on the House Judiciary Committee document requests, so is limited to people who’ve already been asked for documents. But, it doesn’t capture many other items such as the role of Cambridge Analytica, or Paul Manafort’s sharing of presidential polling data with the Russians.

On Thursday, Axios tried to put the Trump investigations and the political scandals in perspective. Their view is that much of what we’ve seen over the past two years have few precedents in presidential history. They cite Watergate, Teapot Dome and the Clinton impeachment, all defining moments of presidential wrong doing.

But, they close by saying that Trump may survive all of it, and that Republican voters seem basically unmoved by the mounting evidence.

Why is it so difficult for people of both parties to coalesce around either his guilt, or innocence? How is it that we just forget about the breathtaking corruption of Trump Cabinet Secretaries Scott Pruitt, or Ryan Zinke?

Many of the Federal judges on the Russian investigation who have ruled against Trump’s associates. The judges say the Trumpies were selling out the interests of the US. That has consequences for Americans, including the constituents of the Republican members of Congress who want us to stop investigating.

It’s depressingly clear that 2020 will be another close presidential election. The Republican Party is willing to condone bad behavior and criminality when the perpetrator is one of their own.

How can America rectify this problem? Even if a Democrat wins the presidency, it is unlikely the Dems will win a majority in the Senate. So, the GOP will again use the same obstructionist game plan we saw during the Obama administration.

NPR had a short piece, “Why Partisanship Changes How People React To Noncontroversial Statements”. It reported on a study where people were given anodyne statements like “I grew up knowing that the only way we can make change is if people work together”.

It turned out that most people agreed with the statement, until they are told that it was said by someone in the other political party. Then they disagreed. If people can only agree with a meaningless statement when they think it was said by their political party, what hope do we have to find agreement when the stakes are high, like in the Mueller investigation?

Given the Republicans’ disinterest for seeking the truth behind the Trump scandals, the outlook for our democracy is grim.

We need to be clear-eyed about how much work, and how long it will take, to right the ship.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – April 1, 2018

Hopefully, none of you brought any of these cute little babies home for Easter. Wrongo’s parents once brought home some baby chicks for the holiday. The family dog ended their stay very quickly. Just don’t do it!

Easter falls on April Fool’s Day. We’ve been invited to a family party. We’re hoping someone’s really home when we get there. The men’s college basketball championship is sandwiched around April 1st, and Wrongo will be watching. Sadly, the UConn women’s basketball team lost in their final four for the second year in a row.

We endured another week of non-stop foolery by our elected representatives, and this week’s cartoons show just that.

There will be new census questions, but its doubtful that these will make the cut: