Summary
Special counsel Jack Smith dropped 44 federal charges against Donald Trump, citing DOJ policy that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted.
The charges, including election interference and classified documents retention, could be refiled after Trump’s presidency.
Critics, including Rep. Dan Goldman and former Capitol officer Aquilino Gonell, decried the move as a miscarriage of justice, asserting it places Trump above the law.
Trump and allies celebrated the decision as a victory, with Vice President-elect JD Vance vowing to prevent similar prosecutions.
Democrats fear Trump will seek political retaliation, deepening national divisions.
The United States is a fucking joke. The nation supposedly founded on the rejection of a king believes that one person is literally not subject to US law. I could not have more contempt for, or feel more shame about being an unwilling participant in the unprincipled hypocrisy of this absolute shit hole of a country.
Fuck the oligarchs that run this place. Fuck the fascist Republican Party. Fuck the cowardly Democrats. And fuck the moronic, fear-riddled people.
That is the biggest and most obvious show of the corruption of the US American “justice” system. It was long known as the best “justice” money could buy, but this is open disregard of any legal principle.
Well it’s still the best justice money can buy, just in a twisted, sinister kind of way and with a big emphasis on the money part
The average lifespan of an empire is 250 years.
The USA is 248 years old.
These facts are unrelated and I don’t remember why I brought them up.
Strictly speaking, it makes sense that you don’t ask the DOJ to prosecute their boss, considering if DOJ threw the case, he could not be prosecuted again later due to double jeopardy.
Instead, presidents are to be judged by Congress through impeachment, since Congress is supposed to be independent.
Does not really change anything since congress is too broken by partisan politics to do anything, but I just wanted to point out where the issue really is.
Here here. Fuck the entire broken system that keeps people so visibly and obviously above any semblance of justice.
sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted.
The charges, including election interference
🤡
Election interference is legal if you do it so well you win.
This is honestly the biggest joke of them all.
Get ready for way, way more election interference.
In fairness, that’s election interference over the last election. It just took a whole cycle to conclude that he definitely did do it. There’s no way he did it this time though right? Right?
No one could possibly be that daring that they’d do it and win, lose, then do it again to win again?
Second time must have been legit.
If it prosper, none dare call it treason.
Democrats fear Trump will seek political retaliation, deepening national divisions.
No, it’s not a fear. It’s an acknowledgement of exactly what he has said he will do:
Trump has said repeatedly he will seek political retaliation, deepening national divisions.
This feels like a joke from Portal
“Test subjects fear I will kill them with turrets and fry whatever is left, even if it’s still alive. Mostly because of my plans to kill them with turrets and fry whatever is left even if it’s still alive.” - GlaDOS probably
English person here: I didn’t think he was classed as ‘sitting’ until he was officially voted in with the Electoral College and sworn in. Surely there’s still time to prosecute.
You’re right that he’s not sitting yet, but wrong in that there’s not time to prosecute before he is sworn in. And anyway, he’d be the boss of the prosecutors against him so he can retaliate with no fear of consequence.
Thank you for clarifying
I told my wife 4 years ago when these charges came in “If this becomes more than a slap on the wrist I will be amazed”, I am not amazed.
I’m actually kinda OK with this considering the circumstances.
With the republican’s capture of the presidency, congress, and the SCOTUS, there’s no way he’s going to suffer a day for his charges if the court pursued them.
The main problem was not sentencing him quickly when they had the chance. That’s the major fuckup.
Anyway, the dismissed charges are without prejudice. Which offers the opportunity (assuming trump survives his presidency, we don’t end up with a de facto republican dictatorship, etc) that he can be sentenced after his presidency.
But we all know how the courts love sentencing rich old white dudes.
I see it as a white flag. It’s not gonna happen now, and it isn’t going to happen later either. This battle they lost and that’s that.
Democrats need to start worrying less about Trump the person and more about the potential ramifications we will face in the near and farther future. It seems Democrats have a 5 year plan and Republicans have a 50 year plan, that’s why they keep gaining power and favor.
How so. Legally he can’t take office according to the constitution. And thereby his charges in Georgia and NY would hit him still, as Vance couldn’t pardon state charges. But yeah, we knew this would happen
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It seems counter intuitive, but you want as little of this of this floating around as possible while he’s in office. Act like nothing’s pending throughout his term, then reopen this the minute he’s out.
We don’t need him having more motives to try to dictatorially stay in power after his term, and stuff like clearly pending trials and sentencings hanging over him the moment he leaves the WH could give him that extra incentive.
then reopen this the minute he’s out.
I’ll take shit that will never happen for $800, Alex.
Who is going to stop Trump from just pardoning himself?
A heart attack before inauguration.
But then we have a couch fucker.
And I’m not sure which would be worse. Vance might be a bit more moderate on some things but his competence and ability to work with others makes him more dangerous on those.
I’ve been debating this with myself, and my conclusion is that Trump might be worse because Vance is at least a politician. He has some knowledge and “respect” (maybe) for the trappings of the office, whereas Trump gives no shits for rules or regulations and is all too happy to trample on every right and freedom we have.
But who knows, I could go both ways on which would be worse.
Vance is a smarmy piece of shit who will do anything for power and will bend over backwards for his owners who picked him to be vice president to make sure they had control when Trump dies.
Vance is absolutely much more the issue cause he won’t have enough charisma and self aggrandizing to stand up for his own ideas like Trump does that slows his party down and occasionally creates tension. He will just “yes and” whatever is needed to be done.
Vance is a smarmy piece of shit who will do anything for power
You just described the entire Republican party.
But more to the point, the other side of the coin is that either Trump’s views align with those of his owners, or he’s just as easily manipulated, and either way, he believes himself to be a dictator and acts accordingly. He has no morals and no qualms about breaking the law. He says that people who disagree with him politically should be locked up and talks about how he needs generals like Hitler had. He has been putting people loyal to him in positions of power since day one of his first term. What infighting he has created in the Republican party may slow him down, but it might create more collateral along the way from his cronyism and disregard for rules of politics. At least Vance wouldn’t be ignoring the FBI vetting his appointments and talking about replacing the heads of the FBI with people more loyal to him.
Both are bad for the country, I just don’t know if I can say one would be worse than the other. Vance is the corrupt official while Trump is the Florida man riding the high of who only knows what squared up to fight 5 cops who will probably win the fight.
Well I know vance aint crazy enough to just willy nilly and launch nukes, unlike trump who’s just batshit crazy, but he’s more capable to doing more damage to democracy.
Nothing for the Federal stuff, I guess.
He can’t pardon the state felony convictions he has, though. That’s the case that worries me in this regard.
You can’t pardon yourself if you haven’t been charged or if the case was dropped 😉😉
Oh yes you can.
Ford’s pardon of Nixon states:
Now, Therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.
Whether or not any crimes were charged is irrelevant. Whether or not any charges were made and then dropped is irrelevant. “All offenses.”
I sit corrected.
Who says so? Nixon was pardoned for a crime he wasn’t even charged with.
They can’t arrest a husband and wife for the same crime 😉
This is how our nation falls. Not with a bang, but cowering and whimpering.
Went from oligarchy to patriarchal oligarchy reaaal quick there lmao
Everyone’s going to shrug it off like they did in russia when putin was beginning to spread his roots. Then they’ll cry 'it’s not the people’s fault, it’s him!".
That was always the plan
The party of law and order…for everyone but themselves.
Democrats sat on their ass for 4 years and bailed Trump out.
Yup. Jack’s hands were tied by SCOTUS.
It is good that he didn’t dismiss the charges with prejudice tho 'cause that means they can be brought again.
Dropping them now actually prevents a Trump Admin appointee from getting them dismissed with prejudice. it sucks that trumps delay tactics let him run out the clock, and it’s unclear of Garland was malicious or incompetent in how long he delayed appointing Smith. Hopefully we come out the other side.
Lot of good that decrying’ll do now.
Democrats are done, elect a progressive party
Dems are too coward to vote anything else than blue no matter who
Their blues are just republican lite, we need actual progressives. Bernie was blue and they burned him, like every progressive. So it does matter who
It’s third party time
Merrick Garland needs to be remembered by history as an all time coward. The way we use Machiavelli to label a traitor, we need to use Garland to denote the most limp, failed and feckless human being.
Here’s everything you need, press this one button and the majority of the country will celebrate you perpetually and history will call you a hero… Doesn’t lift a finger, throws up down the front of his shirt, falls asleep.
Fuck Merrick Garland, without qualification.
The blame is squarely at the feet of McConnell, Obama, Biden, Orrin Hatch, and finally Merrick Garland.
A timeline:
In 2010 Obama nominated Kagan to SCOTUS. A nomination criticized by Hatch as blatantly partisan. Hatch said that he had known Garland for years. He added that, if nominated, he would be a “consensus nominee” and that there was “no question” he would be confirmed.
Then in 2016 with the Scalia vacancy, McConnell made up the fictional “Biden rule” to refuse seating or even hearing a nominee. Hatch then claimed that this process could proceed if an uncontroversial nominee was proffered. He again mentioned Merrick Garland:
"The president told me several times he’s going to name a moderate [to fill the court vacancy], but I don’t believe him. [Obama] could easily name Merrick Garland, who is a fine man. He probably won’t do that because this appointment is about the election. So I’m pretty sure he’ll name someone the [liberal Democratic base] wants.”
Then of course, Obama caved to Hatch’s public request further elevating Garland in the public eye and to the approval of centrists and liberals. McConnell still refused to acquiesce, and dragged it out into the next presidency.
Then with Trump’s electoral win, and some backroom dealing to get Kennedy to retire, the federalist society and the heritage foundation got their 40+ year wish. A conservative court, despite the rules, the circumstances, the math being otherwise. And all with zero fight from the Obama Administration.
Fast forward to the Biden administration in 2021, FOREVER still entertaining the notions of bipartisanship. Even while the GOP will offer a handshake while donning a Freddy Kruegeresque sharpened gauntlet of knives.
So of COURSE Biden nominated Garland to AG in the foolish hope that Americans and the GOP would somehow view this move as apolitical, above the frey, etc.
Garland is a symptom just like Trump is a symptom. They both stem from the same problem. That problem being a new aristocracy, a political class that seeks to simply preserve their places in power, and completely purge the citizenry from the body politic. A new Jim Crow, but one of bureaucracy. One that exclusively values the opinions of the political class over the wishes of the people. Garland is the example of this system as is Obama/Biden and many others. Meanwhile men like McConnell will easily exploit this system, and men like Trump will gain power as a reaction TO this system.
Power has been removed from the people (what little we had) and now the GOP and the majority of the DNC seek to keep it that way as it keeps them in power.
If you think I’m wrong about the DNC, just look at their actions. They’re floating Rahm Emanuel to head the DNC. They’re already talking about a Harris/Buttigieg ticket in 2028 (because you know, fuck the voters, their primaries, their caucuses. Who needs a Democratic process?)
And it’s not a nobody saying this. It’s guys like David Axlerod saying it on the LibDem mouthpiece network MSNBC.
Here comes 4 years of dem finger wagging
And don’t forget conservative finger wagging.
“I’m sure he learned his lesson.”
No one has pretended that in years.
This is what America voted for. Cthulu help us.
You know, for the first time in my life I understand the Cultists from Lovecraftian horror. If there was some ritual we could perform to awaken an Elder God to devour the planet, I would be about ready to join in.
"President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office, as an ordinary citizen, unless the statute of limitations has run, still liable for everything he did while in office, didn’t get away with anything yet – yet.”
— Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), on February 13, 2021, arguing against the need to impeach Donald Trump.
