The Idiocracy of Donald J. Trump

[oblong]

3 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Pearl clutching? We are talking about prosecuting a former president and current front runner to slide into that seat again. Maybe he just wanted to get it right? This gets all layed at the feet of Willis. It was her and her poor decision alone to hire her boy toy. The case is allowed to move forward with zero distractions now.

I agree. While not “illegal” and maybe not even wrong or unethical. But it was stupid. And why give his team any ammo at all to throw back.  The judge here is doing the prosecution and the process a favor.   I see it like a manager of an opposing team seeing something that’s possibly cheating but rather than make a stink and thing out of it, you just say “get rid of it and let’s move on”. Like LaRussa in the 2006 WS with Kenny Rogers.  Fix the situation and keep playing. 

[pfife]

Kenny didn't cheat in that game though that stuff fell on his hand

[chasfh]

11 hours ago, oblong said:

I agree. While not “illegal” and maybe not even wrong or unethical. But it was stupid. And why give his team any ammo at all to throw back.  The judge here is doing the prosecution and the process a favor.   I see it like a manager of an opposing team seeing something that’s possibly cheating but rather than make a stink and thing out of it, you just say “get rid of it and let’s move on”. Like LaRussa in the 2006 WS with Kenny Rogers.  Fix the situation and keep playing. 

Yes it was stupid, and to your implied point, having it hang over the case is doing the prosecution no favors. I suppose the fact that he is who he is shouldn’t lead the judge to make subjective judgments, but really, judges do that all the time, don’t they? I would just hate to learn that people conclude that having them stay on the prosecution team together would corrupt the case, or objectively hinder their ability to prosecute it, because it would do neither.

Edited March 16, 2024 by chasfh

[mtutiger]

6 minutes ago, GoBlue23 said:

🤣

 

This seemed inevitable.... what lender in their right mind would choose to underwrite a half billion dollars for this guy?

[chasfh]

10 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

This seemed inevitable.... what lender in their right mind would choose to underwrite a half billion dollars for this guy?

Orban? Erdogan? Vucic? Xi? Putin? Lots of people would like to keep Trump out of prison.

[CMRivdogs]

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Orban? Erdogan? Vucic? Xi? Putin? Lots of people would like to keep Trump out of prison.

They already own his soul. Maybe they're starting to think he's a bad investment. 

[mtutiger]

12 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

They already own his soul. Maybe they're starting to think he's a bad investment. 

Also, there's the whole "getting the money from Point A to Point B" issue....

[chasfh]

12 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

They already own his soul. Maybe they're starting to think he's a bad investment. 

You're right, they do, but it's not as though they have to account for the money they are stealing from their country and using it for whatever they want. So what if they throw a couple billion at Trump and it comes up snake eyes? Especially the last two guys.

[pfife]

8 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Also, there's the whole "getting the money from Point A to Point B" issue....

Would it be illegal for him to accept money from a foreign entity to pay for this?  I legit don't know

With this caveat you have raised I kinda agree w/ Chas, I'm surprised there's no one out there that would take a $500m chance to leverage a potential future leader of the free world.   In the grand scheme of nation states 500m seems like nothing 

[CMRivdogs]

You would think his son in law would front him half a $billion out of his Saudi bribe.

[gehringer_2]

1 minute ago, pfife said:

Would it be illegal for him to accept money from a foreign entity to pay for this?  I legit don't know

With this caveat you have raised I kinda agree w/ Chas, I'm surprised there's no one out there that would take a $500m chance to leverage a potential future leader of the free world.   In the grand scheme of nation states 500m seems like nothing 

Would there be tax liability? If someone pays your bond is that a gift? A loan with an imputed value? Beats me but inquiring minds want to know.

[mtutiger]

5 minutes ago, pfife said:

Would it be illegal for him to accept money from a foreign entity to pay for this?  I legit don't know

I honestly don't know either, but at least in the case of the EJ Carroll bond (posted by Chubb Insurance), the bond had to be accepted by the presiding judge in order to post.

Edited March 18, 2024 by mtutiger

[pfife]

38 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

I honestly don't know either, but at least in the case of the EJ Carroll bond (posted by Chubb Insurance), the bond had to be accepted by the presiding judge in order to post.

Gotcha.  I believe I heard or read that in this case, the judgement included that he couldn't get a bond from a New York entity as well.  

[chasfh]

Oh-for-30. That’s some Javy-level futility right there.

Looks like the Tines found that a rich benefactor is still part of the equation:

Mr. Trump has asked the appeals court to pause the $454 million judgment that a New York judge imposed on Mr. Trump in the fraud case last month, or accept a bond of only $100 million. Otherwise, the New York attorney general’s office, which brought the case, might soon move to collect from Mr. Trump.

Still, even if the higher court rejects his appeal, Mr. Trump is not entirely out of options. He might appeal to the state’s highest court, quickly sell an asset or seek help from a wealthy supporter.

 

[chasfh]

There are a lot of things that could possibly happen next. I think declaring bankruptcy is a non-starter because that might actually hurt Trump’s standing in red hats’ eyes. Same could be said of his selling substantial and visible chunks of his real estate portfolio, like Trump Tower—that would be a bad look. His unerring business sense and his billionaireship, or something along those lines, are a central part of his appeal. If it turns out he’s broke, then what is he, really? Although red hats may be so far gone on him, even that might not make a difference.

I think a rich benefactor is still solidly in the picture, and someone no one has ever heard of could swoop in with money for his bond, although if Engeron really does have the power to reject the bond due to sourcing, the benefactor would need so many layers between them and a foreign government that no one could vet that in time to decide on the bond, and Engeron just accepts it with some vagueness still attached to it.

I doubt Engeron will start seizing assets, especially Trump Tower, because there is a political cost to this, in that it could be the strongest confirmation yet to MAGA that the Deep State is arrayed against him, and Democrats are desperate to avoid the optics of that.

I think the most likely possibilities in terms of next step are either (1) months of delays will ensue because of some combination of Letitia James adding an extra 30 or 60 days or so for Trump to come up with the money; appeals court pauses the judgment for some period of time; and/or subsequent supreme courts take up the bond case on appeal; or (2) Engeron accepts a reduced bond amount, substantially lower than $500-ish but substantially higher than $100MM, that one or more of the 30 companies will agree to foot the bill for. Either way, by the time we turn the calendar to April, we will be disappointed that Trump will be evading justice yet again.

[gehringer_2]

I take refusal by the bonding companies also to be judgement on the strength of his case on appeal. Logically it would seem the most likely outcome is a reduction in the bond requirement - but that's said in total ignorance what the law says about how the bond is determined, IOW how much discretion does any judge have to change the bond?

Putin is no doubt faced with a dilemma here. He may be able to get Trump the money but at the cost of exposing so many of his financial moles in the US that the CIA will have a field day following leads generated by the bond money trail even if the connections are initially opaque  enough that Trump gets the bond in the short term. Still, it's has to be a job one for Vladdy right now because cutting off aid to Ukraine is probably do or die for him.

Edited March 19, 2024 by gehringer_2

[mtutiger]

20 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I doubt Engeron will start seizing assets, especially Trump Tower, because there is a political cost to this, in that it could be the strongest confirmation yet to MAGA that the Deep State is arrayed against him, and Democrats are desperate to avoid the optics of that.

I think the most likely possibilities in terms of next step are either (1) months of delays will ensue because of some combination of Letitia James adding an extra 30 or 60 days or so for Trump to come up with the money; appeals court pauses the judgment for some period of time; and/or subsequent supreme courts take up the bond case on appeal; or (2) Engeron accepts a reduced bond amount, substantially lower than $500-ish but substantially higher than $100MM, that one or more of the 30 companies will agree to foot the bill for. Either way, by the time we turn the calendar to April, we will be disappointed that Trump will be evading justice yet again.

I'm not sure that Engoron is the one who would seize the assets, my understanding is that NYS, under the auspices of James, would be the ones moving on assets.

I also don't think NYS is nearly as concerned about the optics as you suggest. Given that it's the home of Wall Street, it's the one state in the country that I could see being able to handle a case of this magnitude.  But time will tell.

Edited March 19, 2024 by mtutiger

[oblong]

Doesn't the judge have a duty to the victim in this case to expedite they get their money.

I do think the benefactor will come in.  Elon.

 

[mtutiger]

7 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Putin is no doubt faced with a dilemma here. He may be able to get Trump the money but at the cost of exposing so many of his financial moles in the US that the CIA will have a field day following leads generated by the bond money trail even if the connections are initially opaque  enough that Trump gets the bond in the short term. Still, it's has to be a job one for Vladdy right now because cutting off aid to Ukraine is probably do or die for him.

Wouldn't Putin be evading sanctions to even get the money to Trump in this hypothetical? Maybe the shell companies and cutouts exist to facilitate, but even getting money into the US from Putin seems like it would be a lot more difficult than it's being made out to be in this discussion.

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Wouldn't Putin be evading sanctions to even get the money to Trump in this hypothetical? Maybe the shell companies and cutouts exist to facilitate, but even getting money into the US from Putin seems like it would be a lot more difficult than it's being made out to be in this discussion.

It may not need to be moved. $550M isn't big money for Putin, he may already have resources of that magnitude under his control (or at least strong influence) in the US but how to get them redeployed covertly is probably tricky.

[romad1]

The degree to which the sanctions and the eyes of US CI are on Trump's operation will impede things combined with the delusional hold over his followers leads me to think this will result in farcical attempts to evade sanctions.  I can imagine Trash Can Man (from The Stand) stealing a nuke to deliver to Iran on Trump's behalf.  

[mtutiger]

Just now, gehringer_2 said:

It may not need to be moved. $550M isn't big money for Putin, he may already have resources of that magnitude under his control (or at least strong influence) in the US but how to get them redeployed covertly is probably tricky.

Yeah, that seems like a pretty huge complicating factor. And when people throw out these alternate funding scenarios, it seems like it gets avoided *a lot*

[mtutiger]

20 minutes ago, oblong said:

Doesn't the judge have a duty to the victim in this case to expedite they get their money.

I do think the benefactor will come in.  Elon.

 

Elon or someone else domestically seems more plausible to me than a foreign government.... although it's not without risks for him to weigh in that way either.

[chasfh]

Does it have to be Elon or foreign government? 😏

[oblong]