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Jury finds Donald Trump guilty on all 34 counts at hush money trial
- swader999 2y ago[flagged]
- password54321 2y agoIt is funny that people think Putin is suddenly going to pause everything because Trump decided to call him up. In no way does he trust Trump anymore then Biden and many republicans do openly support escalation with Russia.
- swader999 2y agoPutin has repeatedly sought to negotiate a resolution to this but the biden admin has quashed it.
- ModernMech 2y agoTrump's version of "calming things down with Russia" is complete capitulation and America exiting NATO. His plan is to stop sending arms to Ukraine and then to look the other way when Putin invades Poland.
- swader999 2y agoYes I agree, there will need to be concessions. That's what happens when you lose a war. Or we roll the dice and escalate. It's a matter of picking the best of several bad choices available. If Putin invades Poland then full mobilization, likely nuclear war ensures. At some point this happens regardless because we will only make progress in Ukraine through escalation to stages that force Russia's hand. This isn't WW2 and replaying that in your head and saying we need to learn for that won't serve you well. And here's the latest escalation: "Joe Biden" took a giant step yesterday toward commencing World War Three. The move was framed as the US gives Ukraine permission to use American missiles to strike deep within Russia. That was a bit disingenuous, you see, because Ukraine’s military lacks the know-how to actually launch the missiles, so American military “advisors” will have to be on hand to do it, meaning US military personnel will commit an act of aggression upon Russia.
- racional 2y agoSo what do you think a "calmer" situation in the region will look like? Specifically -- what concessions should be Ukraine be forced to make in order for you to feel -- safer?
- swader999 2y agoFor starters, not orchestrating the 2014 coup, not shelling the Donbas on Feb 16 2021, not violating the Minsk agreement would have helped. The laws Ukraine passed that made Russian speaking Ukrainians second class citizens were also egregious. Keeping promises that assured Russia NATO wouldn't encroach would be useful. I don't know if this situation can be resolved with the current administration. I think it will take new leadership to negotiate away from the brink. I'd like to see RFK in there even if he had a chance.
- racional 2y agoWhat happened specifically in the Donbas on Feb 16, 2021? And from what sources do you know this from?
- swader999 2y agoOff by one on the year, but here's one source: https://www.voanews.com/a/shelling-mortar-fire-intensify-in-ukraine-s-donbas-as-war-clouds-gather-/6450218.html https://www.voanews.com/a/shelling-mortar-fire-intensify-in-...
- hollywood_court 2y agoI’d love to be a drywall repair contractor during these next few weeks.
- rvz 2y ago[flagged]
- mikece 2y agoTrump is an idiot but his defense team seemed like they were sandbagging for this very reason. Things are about to get WILD!
- shadowgovt 2y agoI'm not a lawyer, but it seems from the outside looking in that former President Trump has managed to find himself in the unenviable position of being such a toxic legal client that increasingly few bar professionals are willing to take his case. It is unfortunate, because the system actually only works if defendants rights are protected by competent counsel. But any public defender can tell you that there's no accounting for your client sabotaging your ability to protect their rights.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pixl97 2y agoAny competent lawyer will tell their client to exercise the right to remain silent, and that saying anything unless directed by your lawyer can dramatically increase your chance of a conviction. It doesn't even take a keen power of observation to realize that Donald is completely unable to remain silent on anything. His recent civil fines of ever increases amounts are evidence of that. Getting on TV/Twitter/whatever and admitting guilt is not a great way to avoid a conviction at all, the prosecution will gladly, and rightfully, use your own words against you.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoTrump's defense team was held back by Trump. Trump is running for office. He's not just trying to win the case, he's trying to maintain an image of perfection for the voters. ("I didn't have sex with her at all, and all of this is just political persecution by a corrupt judge, orchestrated by a president who knows he's losing.") Trump's lawyers were handicapped because they had to try to maintain the image, not just win the case.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- IamLoading 2y agoWhy do i feel like this will skyrocket his poll. Is he still eligible to be on the ballot, while going through the appeal? Appeal easily takes him to 2025.
- friend_and_foe 2y agoHe's eligible to be on the ballot even if he were convicted of murder.
- candiddevmike 2y agoIdk, you'd think there would come a point when enough people say he's a fraud that it gets through to his base. He's now a convicted felon, representing the party of "law and order". That shouldn't end well.
- newfriend 2y ago[flagged]
- clipsy 2y agoYes, people with a sliver of a brain do indeed think that.
- spartanatreyu 2y agoHe signed the checks though.
- voisin 2y agoCare to elaborate for those of us who can’t fathom what you are referring to?
- mc32 2y agoAren’t the charges misdemeanors?
- throwup238 2y ago
- mikece 2y ago"When you're born in this world you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in the united States you get a front row ticket." --George Carlin We're about to see just how right Mr. Carlin was.
- Kye 2y agoJust a gentle reminder (until dang gets here) that HN usually lets sufficiently big political news pass even if it's likely to generate lots of heat and little light. I've already erased several snarky, gloating replies because I would like to see discussion of this proceed in something like a civil manner.
- leereeves 2y agoUnfortunately, the HN conversation structure, while great for technical discussions, does not function well for political discussions. I wish there were a similar site for reasonable political debate, but the moderation required would probably be too expensive.
- trekkie1024 2y agoCould you elaborate on that point about structure? I’m curious what you mean.
- leereeves 2y agoI mean the tree structure, the crowd-sourced moderation (flagging and downvotes), and promoting/hiding content based on votes. When the topic isn't controversial, that all tends to promote the best comments. But when the topic is controversial, it simply makes one point of view dominant. (The "hivemind" as redditors say.)
- church_ 2y ago[dead]
- tonetheman 2y ago[dead]
- asdvlk34gl 2y ago[flagged]
- monsecchris 2y agoAs far as I can see, betting markets moved very slightly in favour of Democrats winning on this verdict.
- slater 2y agoGot a link for that? I'm not into betting/betting sites, all I get is old articles about Mr. Orange being the favorite still
- chr-s 2y agoCheck out the 24h chart on https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7456/Who-will-win-the-2024-US-presidential-election https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7456/Who-will-win-t... The roughly 50-45 Trump-Biden favor briefly flipped to 48-50 but now looks to be reverting to the mean.
- church_ 2y ago[dead]
- richrichie 2y ago51/35 now https://www.realclearpolling.com/betting-odds/2024/president https://www.realclearpolling.com/betting-odds/2024/president
- mcphage 2y agoI’m sorry, do those odds claim that Obama has an almost 4% chance of becoming president?
- bjt1997 2y agoI think it is Michelle Obama. That's what the "market" thinks. You are welcome to "arbitrage" it with some $! Biden has a non zero probability of dying before the election (of natural causes). Plus DNC nomination is a super pac driven process. Math might just compute.
- hollywood_court 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Kye 2y agoHere's how this looks on the backend of Bluesky, just to provide a technical angle: https://bsky.app/profile/jaz.bsky.social/post/3ktqdpdyiku2q https://bsky.app/profile/jaz.bsky.social/post/3ktqdpdyiku2q And the firehose, but be warned: this has no moderation filters applied to it. https://firesky.tv/?filter=trump%20guilty https://firesky.tv/?filter=trump%20guilty
- nojvek 2y agoEven if Trump appeals and wins, he has 4 other trials lined up. It's going to be an interesting election. On the chance that he wins presidency, it is sure he will push for laws to gain more power. Perhaps even more Republican supreme court justices. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/legal-troubles-former-us-president-donald-trump-2024-04-15/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/legal-troubles-former-us-pr... * TRIAL OVER HUSH MONEY TO PORN STAR * SPECIAL COUNSEL'S ELECTION SUBVERSION CHARGES * GEORGIA ELECTION-SUBVERSION CHARGES * NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL CIVIL LAWSUIT * SPECIAL COUNSEL'S CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CHARGES
- tim333 2y agoThe other cases will probably get delayed till after the election, and dropped if he wins. It's kind of odd he's been prosecuted for this odd not really a crime stuff but not for the more serious ones.
- acdha 2y agoThis is absolutely a crime - you really don’t want to tolerate politicians committing crimes to conceal information from voters. What makes it different is that it’s entirely at the state level so you don’t have political interference: he can’t have judges he appointed running interference and prosecutors are not wondering whether the guy they’re charging will be their boss. I suspect that if the national GOP hadn’t purged opposition figures you’d see more cases brought with the protection of a hypothetical “law and order” wing of the party.
- tim333 2y agoThe case is a funny one though - false records to cover up influencing an election through unlawful means but the means were not specified - could be a) campaign finance laws or could be b) NY tax laws or c) other. I think the jury were told any would do and I'm not sure that's published so even after being convicted Trump doesn't know if it's for a, b or c? I'm not a lawyer or even an American - I just follow this out of mild interest. I'm not a Trump fan but I'm not sure how well this plays out. He's unlikely to get locked up and saying don't vote for Trump - he's guilty of stuff although we are not quite sure what but definitely guilty, may not play that well with electors.
- HaZeust 2y agoRegardless of one's beliefs on Trump, it is a good day when presidents are no longer de facto immune from law. We now have case law that presidents can be prosecuted post-office. In terms of Montesquieu checks and balances, this is a good day. In terms of the pragmatic health of America, I'm not nearly as sure.
- judgemerchan 2y ago[flagged]
- HaZeust 2y ago"political prosecution in a rigged court is not a good day. Not knowing the exact charges and being unable to defend yourself is not a good day. Being able to convict while disagreeing on the specifics wrongs is not a good day." What are you talking about? His fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth amendment rights that concern conduction of a criminal trial were all honored. They didn't disagree on specifics, charges were decided and enforced. There's no evidence of rigging the court or that the prosecution was "political", short of the politics of everyday judiciary anyway. If you've got a problem with how this case was conducted, you ought to take it up with the country's 238 year-old precedents for its handling of criminal justice theory (and in some cases, I'd agree with you) - NOT how this specific case was conducted.
- judgemerchan 2y ago[flagged]
- jcranmer 2y agoIf Trump doesn't understand the charges against him, maybe he should have paid attention when his lawyer explained it to him. The charges are pretty clearly laid out.
- judgemerchan 2y ago[flagged]
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- navalnyism 2y ago[flagged]
- Andrew_nenakhov 2y agoThis very much reminds me of my home Russia. Like that time when Navalny was sentenced for fraud and stealing all the lumber, and Putin's press secretary remarking that courts in our country are fully independent and it is absurd to insinuate that the verdict was politically motivated.
- ahiknsr 2y agoDid Navalny also lose the election and then tried to overthrow the elected government by sending fake electors? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot what about intimidating government officials to find votes for him? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_phone_call https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_ph...
- Andrew_nenakhov 2y agoThank you for proving my point that just like Navalny, Trump wasn't prosecuted for whatever he was found guilty of.
- gwd 2y agoHe's being prosecuted for both of those things, but both of those trials are on hold awaiting an appeal.
- padjo 2y agoYes if you don’t really pay attention to any of the details then the cases look similar.
- exodust 2y agoAustralian here. My 2 cents. For some reason I kinda like Trump in spite of his antics & theatrics. "Like" may be a strong word. In some respects I "like" Biden too, I've enjoyed some of his speeches, the coherent ones. I recall Trump's 2016 election victory speech was actually good, well said. Read the transcript. He was sincere in his complements to Hilary, and he emphasised uniting everyone and repairing division which is exactly what leaders should do more often. In my country we've had some shocker victory speeches from both sides of politics. Rambling egotistical diatribes feature heavily, or straight up reinforcing division and team-sport gloating. This trial. I don't get it. $130,000 is nothing. NDA payments are legal, but we're told that classifying the payment incorrectly is some great crime? Give me a break, it's a porn star! Who cares if they had sex 20 years ago? Obviously a running president doesn't want a disgruntled porn star blabbing about old raunchy encounters, factual or otherwise. Enter the legal NDA. America is funny. Bill Clinton lied about his affair with an employee while he was president. The Stormy affair supposedly happened long ago. Regardless of how much Trump is disliked, this trial and conviction is a circus. It confirms "lawfare" is indeed a thing, aimed at what looks to me like a crime no worse than jay-walking, relatively speaking. Good luck USA.
- ModernMech 2y agoIf you don't understand the trial, maybe you should have followed it. > Who cares if they had sex 20 years ago? Trump cared. He cared enough to pay her $130,000 for her silence, because he thought if she said what she had to say, he would not have won. This was the finding of the jury, and all that matters as far as his conviction. > Enter the legal NDA. If it were paid with legal funds. But it can't be paid for campaign funds, because they have to be accounted for. That's illegal. And you can't get around paying with campaign funds by having your fixer do it for you and then reimbursing him through disguised "legal payments". That's fraud. Trump did both, so therefore today he's a criminal and a felon. > this trial and conviction is a circus. You didn't even pay attention to it, so how would you know? The trial was not a circus at all. It was all above board, the defendant's rights were maintained. Do you have anything specific to say as to how and why it was a circus? Question: Do you think a candidate for high office should be able to commit and cover up crimes if they think it will increase their chances of getting elected? If not, if they do cover up and commit crimes, and are then elected, do you think they shouldn't be prosecuted if those crimes later come to light? Or are you immune from any crime you commit to get into office as long as you get elected to that office? Because it really seems like people want that to be the case.
- canadiantim 2y agoLooks like civil war is already occuring in the US, only question is whether it turns hot
- acdha 2y agoThis seems like an odd story to base that on. Laws being fairly applied following centuries of legal precedent isn’t exactly a civil war, although the reaction could be if someone tried to break him out of jail or something like that. Fair trials of political leaders is a hallmark of functioning democracy.
- thunky 2y ago> Fair trials of political leaders is a hallmark of functioning democracy. Yet this is the first time a US president has ever been brought to trial. And one could argue that the case against him was based on a legal technicality, where the crime itself is hard to define (and the prosecution wasn't required to fully define it, or the jurors required to agree on it).
- acdha 2y agoThe crime was very cut and dry. What might confusing is that the felony level escalation could be triggered by any one of several crimes and those don’t have to be committed by the same person: it could have been related to the tax evasion or attempted election influence but since Michael Cohen had already plead guilty to violating campaign finance laws as well as tax fraud, all prosecutors had to do was show that this crime was committed in part to cover up Cohen’s uncontested crimes. I doubt they’d have had trouble getting an additional conviction on election interference since it’s so clear that was his concern (c.f. Trump’s stated fears about alienating women voters) but a prosecutor is almost always going to take a given rather than having to risk something going wrong.
- thunky 2y ago> The crime was very cut and dry. What might confusing is that the felony level escalation could be triggered by any one of several crimes and those don’t have to be committed by the same person Yeah, so not cut and dry. And the "confusing" part is required to arrive at a guilty verdict. The falsifying records charge cannot stand on it's own because the statute of limitations (2 years) has passed. Prosecutors had to engineer the charges into a felony via accusing Trump of violating NY election law (or maybe tax law?), which is anything but cut and dry.
- dukeofdoom 2y ago[flagged]