... to be over the moon that Trump has been found GUILTY on all 34 charges?

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Whoop whoop!

It's not great when people are calling people "fools" and talking about the "level of ignorance" of people on this thread.

How else does one respond to foolish ignorant comments ? And the people who parrot them ?

I never have a problem with anyone who doesn't know something. That's all of us all the time in toto.

What I do have a problem with is people who don't know, get told and carry on not knowing for whatever reason they have.

I think it gets frustrating when people wilfully refuse to take on information.

How many times has it been repeated and debunked in this thread that he can pardon himself?

How many times can you respond civilly to disinformation with actual information only to have it ignored or dismissed?

I try not to get into name calling, but I do get the temptation to go there.

If you make a lie big enough and tell it often enough ...

Now, where have I heard that before ?

If he wins I reckon this kind of attack is part of it. It’s just a pushback to it

Well, I understand that it is well established that an American president cannot pardon himself for state crimes but I still think he's going to find a way to pardon himself. Does that make me a fool or ignorant? Okay, fine. It's still name calling.

Source, please? I lived in America for 15 years, follow Trump’s cases in the mainstream American press and am fairly conversant with this question. I have never heard this before. TIA

A conservative Supreme Court might make other kinds of arguments to give Trump an out, but they would not override state governors’ power of pardon for state crimes. After all, ‘States’ Rights’ is a sly reference to support for racial segregation and the oppression of Black people.

The anti-abortion movement rests on vesting power in the states. So does the gerrymandering that Republicans are driving, the cleansing of school libraries, etc. Conservatives are not going to disrupt the powers vested in the states

Is it too early to assume that there won’t be any riots?

Yes

Or a way to get himself pardoned. Same diff.

Delighted. He’ll definitely make president now.

I understand that it is well established that an American president cannot pardon himself for state crimes but I still think

Do you not see the absolute contradiction in that single statement ?

If he's reelected, yes, it's possible he will find a way to destroy the system to the extent such a thing is possible (amusingly, I remember the not so distant days when republicans were hugely keen on states' rights).

But the point some of us were making was that as things stand currently, he can't pardon himself.

From my reading - over many years - the whole federal/state nature of the US has been designed to prevent tyranny. What to us UKians may look "bonkers" is part of a conscious intent by the possibly over-educated Founding Fathers to create a new land with a new contract between citizen and state.

Ultimately this noble intention was totally kneecapped from the off by the veste interests of the slave states and their realisation - and fear - that an ever expanding nation (which the US was also intended to be) might eventually look unkindly on their peculiar institution. A fear that materialise when us meddling Brits rather unhelpfully stopped the transatlantic slave trade and primed the nation for the first civil war.

However you can't fit that on a baseball cap made in China.

@wallow Yes, I understand that as things stand currently he can't pardon himself.

@SerendipityJane No, I don't think I'm contradicting myself. If Trump is elected president again, I think he will try to pardon himself of all state crimes even if he doesn't do so legitimately and he might de facto get away with that until someone wrests power away from him.

Nobody us talking about the accusation of interfering with the elections, which to me sounds more serious than the falsifications one. Is there a separate trial for this one?

@LivelyBlake There's 4 criminal trials, I think.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/30/trumps-three-criminal-cases-status/73897879007/

I’m somewhat happy to see Trump have some degree of accountability but (i) on the scale of his wrongdoings, this is very minor, and (ii) it won’t move the needle on the election race - if someone could forgive Trump for trying to overthrow democracy, they’ll certainly give him a pass on this too.

Every chance he is re-elected.

This is what turned the conviction from a misdemeanor into a felony, in the case that finished yesterday.

So if he hadn't paid off Stormy Daniels, he might not have been elected in 2016. That's why he paid her then and it was considered election interference, which is a felony.

But I'm not sure why no one is mentioning it either.

That’s the Georgia trial. None of the other trials are happening before the election, unfortunately. This is it.

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/30/g-s1-1848/trump-hush-money-trial-34-counts

"The jurors said they unanimously agreed that Trump falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to influence the outcome of the 2016 election."

So it was found that Trump falsified the documents to "commit or conceal a crime" - that crime being unlawfully influencing the 2016 election.

This link also has more details: https://www.npr.org/2024/05/30/nx-s1-4977352/trump-trial-verdict

Yesterday's trial was also about election interference - he falsified documents to make payments that illegally influenced the 2016 election.

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/30/nx-s1-4977352/trump-trial-verdict

Apparently this (NY hush money) trial was considered the weakest of the 4 ...

Sorry, SerendipityJane; I realise nothing about this is remotely funny, but that last sentence has just cracked me up

When so many prefer soundbites it's uncommon to hear from someone who clearly understands why things were set up as they were, but you're quite right of course

Hiding wrongdoing by committing fraud in order to get elected in 2016 doesn't seem very minor to me.

He only won some swing states by a few thousand votes in 2016. If his affair with Daniels had been revealed before the election, he might not have become president at all.

That's why he paid her in the first place, and why he's now a convicted felon.