Trump Indicted: Finally?
This is going to be a monumental shitshow of shitshows for the ages…
A truly important question here is: Can the American Media and Journalistic establishments get it right?
We shall see, as we witness their handling the unprecedented and supremely historic case of :
(The) United States of America v. Donald J. Trump and Waltine Nauta
Here is a summary of the counts, which are listed starting on page 28 of the indictment:
- Willful retention of national defense information: This charge, covering counts 1-31, only applies to Trump and is for allegedly storing 31 such documents at Mar-a-Lago.
- Conspiracy to obstruct justice: Trump and Nauta, along with others, are charged with conspiring to keep those documents from the grand jury.
- Withholding a document or a record: Trump and Nauta are accused of misleading one of their attorneys by moving boxes of classified documents so the attorney could not find or introduce them to the grand jury.
- Corruptly concealing a document or record: This pertains to the Trump and Nauta’s alleged attempts to hide the boxes of classified documents from the attorney.
- Concealing a document in a federal investigation: They are accused of hiding Trump’s continued possession of those documents at Mar-a-Lago from the FBI and causing a false certificate to be submitted to the FBI.
- Scheme to conceal: This is for the allegation that Trump and Nauta hid Trump’s continued possession of those materials from the FBI and the grand jury.
- False statements and representations: This count concerns statements that Trump allegedly caused another one of his attorneys to make to the FBI and grand jury in early June regarding the results of the search at Mar-a-Lago.
- False statements and representations: This final count accuses Nauta of giving false answers during a voluntary interview with the FBI in late May.
According to the indictment, each one of those charges carries a maximum fine of $250,000, with maximum prison sentences between five and 20 years.
06/10/2023 @ 11:13 am
Made a pot of tea this morning and sat down to read it. Incredible. An hour and a half, yet the time flew by. You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand every word.
Although we all knew he did it, we had no idea as to the scope and effort and detail behind it. Worth mentioning, regarding our earlier discussion of the variations of smarts. The indictment sheds a light on how the man’s mind works. Never actually says “destroy these docs”. Instead, not once, but twice, describes how Hillary’s lawyer deleted 30K of her emails. When his lawyer recovered docs, sealed them in packing tape, and asked what to do with them, Trump said to take them back to his hotel room, then makes a plucking motion. Straight out of The Sopranos and The Godfather.
P.S. The NYTimes offers an annotated PDF of the full indictment along with highlighted extra background information. For example, when the indictment refers to ‘attorney 1′ ’employee 2′ etc., they provide their name. I am happy to gift it, if anyone here would like.
06/10/2023 @ 6:45 pm
As excited as I am about him being indicted, I won’t hold my breath about him actually being convicted of any of these charges.
And my biggest fear is that he will be found not guilty, which will just propel him back into the race full-force for the next Presidential election. And that he will be re-elected.
What a nightmare he’s been.
06/11/2023 @ 8:19 am
Rose;
Thus the question mark in the title to this piece.
06/11/2023 @ 8:35 am
Suzanne,
“You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand every word.”
Jack Smith and his team have it dead right. Making it an easy breezy read for the general public is most definitely the way to go with this.
Since it has been unsealed, it is available and accessible to the general public. Putting it in a PDF behind a pay wall is not my idea of how the journalistic establishments should go about the business of keeping the public well informed…
Placing the profit motive above the public interest is, in many respects, what brought us to this historic moment…and, they’re still at it…
06/11/2023 @ 9:03 am
Ron, Jack Smith, my new superhero crush, said everyone should read it, so I did as he said 🙂
I agree abt the Times paywall, yet the full indictment is literally everywhere on the internet for free. What the Times offers is their annotations*, and while interesting, not worth paying gobs of dough. I don’t though, it’s one of my academic perks, and I’d be delighted to share with you, say the word.
The folks who will read it are prolly not the people packing up their bags and flags for Miami Tuesday morning. I can’t pay attention to them, right now anyway. Officially old, I’m disinclined to waste whatever mental and life energy that remains on nonsense.
* NYT annotations reveal who most of the generic term 1,2, 3s are, but NOT the ‘female member of the Trump family’ was who said there wasn’t room for 34 boxes on their jet flying the family to Bedminster. My bet is on Lara Trump.