Donald Trump: Classic or Dud?

Epner with a solid point earlier:

I'm reading the live blogging of Todd Blanche's opening statement and looking for one thing: Does Todd Blanche saying something along the lines of "You don't have to like Donald Trump to reject the charges in this case."

I have not seen Blanche say anything like that yet.

FPOTUS may have barred Blanche from saying it. Without having been privy to their strategic discussions, I'm virtually certain that Blanche & Necheles want that to be said during the opening. It is what every defense counsel says in a case where the defendant has some fleas on him.

The prosecution has objected to three separate portions of Blanche's opening (which is rare). Each of those objections has been SUSTAINED (meaning the judge ruled for the prosecution and against Trump).

This is horrible for Blanche's credibility with the jury, in my training & experience.

He implicitly notes that this is in contrast to the prosecutors being upfront about Cohen's own flaws, and hazarded a guess as to how their closing argument could go. But yeah, Trump BEING Trump, having to at any point admit a flaw seems like a no-go so he wouldn't let his lawyers do that either, and FWIW, this suddenly becomes a clear running line across ALL his legal cases, essentially hiding in plain sight. He never fails, is only failed, etc.

it's the 'catch and kill' part that isn't a crime; it's the down-ballot ramifications wrt the election and that doing c&k was in service of interfering w the election

― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Monday, April 22, 2024 12:18 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

had Trump just paid out of his own pocket, is it likely that nobody knows who Stormy Daniels is today? or were there enough people poking around Trump's finances that someone might've figured it out?

Trump’s motorcade left the courthouse just after 1:05 p.m., wrapping up the trial’s first day of testimony. The view was blocked by an N.Y.P.D. dump truck, to many reporters’ great frustration.

>had Trump just paid out of his own pocket, is it likely that nobody knows who Stormy Daniels is today? or were there enough people poking around Trump's finances that someone might've figured it out?

aiui there will be testimony centered around why payments went thru cohen and not direct from trump or trump org

the thing Trump hates most in the world is losing

I don't think this is right. Maybe it depends what losing means. What he hates is not being the centre of attention. Losing isn't so bad (why would you take up so many battles otherwise?) as long as you get to keep fighting (with his ideologically fanatical associates, elected or not, also more interested in fighting than winning generally) and being the CoA.

Why does the NYPD have a dump truck

that's where they put all the skells, second story men, sneak thieves, and peepers.

xpost maybe it was a police officer w/ a big ass

Special Sanitation Unit

they are literally for the purpose they were used today: mobile barriers. they get used during parades. they are managed by nypd counterterrorism. weird fuckin city.

apparently they are filled with sand to help them absorb explosions. oy vey.

who isn't?

Is there a Law and Order episode where they find a body in the sand truck?

lmao xp

What he hates is not being the centre of attention.

He also seems to take great pleasure in humiliating others.

seems very illegal

NEW: Trump valet Walt Nauta was allegedly told “if even if he gets charged with lying to the FBI, FPOTUS will pardon him in 2024” — per cooperating witness Person 16

Nauta is now a co-defendant in the Trump classified docs case, charged with obstructionhttps://t.co/EZoHEanEDB pic.twitter.com/KQnh7hWWWQ

— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) April 22, 2024

FPOTUS

i too FPed POTUS

Gotta say I am somewhat gobsmacked by the defence narrative - “it was just a piece of routine business to conceal his actions, you know, so voters wouldn’t be influenced by knowing what he’s really like”.

Scraping FPOTUS Off the Wheel

You’ve Got FPOTUS On Your Breath

any good anagrams for Walt Nauta. i suck at anagrams.

W/ TAUT ANAL

WATTA LUNA

a twunt, AAL

https://i.imgur.com/wjGhyYS.jpeg

I won't be said if Cohen falls down an elevator shaft 30 seconds after the last time he testifies against Trump.

xp Tuna at Law

Cohen is even dumber than his former boss. Why on earth would you tweet that during a trial at which you're the flawed star witness

I mean he has tapes of incriminating conversations and already went to jail for this so idk if it matters how "flawed" he is, in fact perhaps being "flawed" shows the jury exactly what kind of scumbag Trump needed to handle his "business"

actually the more I think about it the less I'm worried about some rogue Trump voter on the jury tanking the whole thing. like there may be people on the jury who voted Trump but I don't think any of the ride-or-dies could've made it on (and the prosecution almost certainly used their strikes on anyone they suspected was one) and if anything could deprogram a Trump voter it's actually having to spend a month and a half around the guy, hearing the whining and seeing him fall asleep and rip ass in the courtroom as piles and piles of evidence mounted against him. also this is six weeks in which they won't be able to watch FOX News and there have been studies showing just keeping these people away from the propaganda for a little bit makes them way more moderate.

also important to remember they explicitly tell the jury they are not there to decide if the defendant committed a crime, they're there to decide if he did X, Y, and Z, which are often very specific things, things which I assume the prosecution has a ton of evidence for. so whoever wants to hold this up is going to have to look like an insane person in front of a group of people who will have been their only real contacts for 6 weeks

I’d say the fact that Trump did not have the wherewithal to be able to set up shell corps and off shore accounts to handle such slush funds and make such payments hard to track is further proof he is a pretty shitty evil business genius.

When the judge tells your lawyer, "You're losing all credibility with the court," that's a good thing, right?

NYT says it's bad for Biden

lol

Judge Merchan is clearly not buying that this is passive, he asks, “How does it get there, how does it get on to your client’s Truth Social account?”

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche replies: There’s a group of folks that work with President Trump that when they see articles they believe President Trump’s audience should read.

Blanche added that “there’s a mechanism” through which they get posted.

Merchan asked of re-posting: What is the mechanism?

Blanche said: I believe you click on it.

seems to be a nonzero chance his lawyers are trying to get him thrown in jail because it would be bad for Biden

idk it's very weird seeing Trump actually being in a situation where he can't just lie about everything all the time

also hilarious that the trial is barely underway and the judge is already completely fed up with them

When Cohen was Trump's henchman dealing with a news story about an allegation Trump raped a previous wife, he said "there is no such thing as marital rape" in between leaving threatening messages on journo's phone. Really nice, progressive guy.

any other president would have the best lawyers in the world i imagine. trump takes what he can get.

yeah he's a real piece of shit and I think the fact that Trump needed a guy like that to be his fixer doesn't reflect very well on his "I didn't do any crimes" stance

https://i.imgur.com/PGefR9r.png

lmao he's posting while the judge is deciding whether or not to throw him in jail for posting

he may be one of the worst humans in history but he will almost certainly go down as one of the all-time great posters

Per the hallway pool, Donald Trump was not chatty as he returned to court following a break, ignoring questions such as “Are you going to keep Truthing?”, “How are your lawyers doing?” and “Does your lawyer have any credibility?”

SHOCKER: legal people interested in legal things talk to each other!

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/04/23/anti-trump-legal-pundits-calls-00153300

pretty tough decision for Merchan knowing that jailing an ex-president would be a total circus but also knowing that literally anyone else in the country would've gotten the clink well before this point

Prosecutors said themselves they weren't interested in jailing at this point. Which, smart.

Build the wall

just let him post but tell him that every insult will add 50 million to his fine