NEW YORK — It’s often said that Donald Trump gets what he wants by wearing people down: through obfuscation, delay, bluster, muddying the waters — whatever tires people out.
So nuthin new?
Sleaze, muck, and mutual interest are Trump’s middle names but it still smells like gas since he is charged with falsifying business records in pursuit of election fraud, not mucking about; I suppose as misdirection it must have some utility tho but IANAL
In other words, flood the zone with shit.
Somewhere down this outhouse hole of what our politics have become, is the earring of a policy point: nondisclosure agreements are majorly out of control. Embarrassment is one of the last and often only incentives to behave like a decent human being. Pigs and gold diggers, each in their own ways, are empowered by the NDA.
Trump’s superpower is that he puts all of us on trial. Do we live in the world of rules and laws that we tell ourselves and our kids that we live in, or do we live in a depraved world where every single person and institutution is corruptly transactional? The chance that 1 of 12 New Yorkers believes the latter is pretty damn good, especially since we already know that at least 49 of 50 Republican Senators and 4 or 5 of 9 Supreme Court justices agree.
Trump is a tired unfit elderly man - he needs to be subjected to 10X of his own medicine -
It’s often said that Donald Trump gets what he wants by wearing people down: through obfuscation, delay, bluster, muddying the waters — whatever tires people out.
Exhaust the bastard! Work his ass so that he has uncontrollable tremors & delirium & is verbally wildly incoherent… by 5:00pm every day!
The issue is not whether this was SOP for Pecker/AMI. it does not matter how common or seedy the transactions were. The issue is that Trump lied on his business records about it. That’s the crime.
And I expect the prosecution will hammer that home, again and again.
And this (these?) is/are why none of the rest of the people that Trump’s attorneys are literally throwing under the bus got charged for “the same behavior.” Sheesh
Or, put another way……
If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance baffle them with buIIshit
Once again we quote from the brilliant musical “Chicago,” character Billy Flynn’s “Give ‘em the ol’ razzle dazzle, razzle dazzle 'em”
“the alleged crimes in this case are all normal, if not somewhat sordid, features of high-level politics and business. It’s the crude facts of life for many New Yorkers, he suggests: sometimes it’s dirty, but that doesn’t mean it’s a crime.”
Uhmm… seems to me that there are crimes in the lives of “New Yorkers” - just that they have not been prosecuted until now. Getting away with it does not exonerate you.
I have a question for the other lawyers and professionals here, is this good strategy when trying to convince lawyers and other professionals on a jury?
From the article:
But most of all, Bove emphasized one thing: all of the sleaze, muck, “mutually interested” self-dealing, and assorted seaminess were simply examples of “standard operating procedure” in the seedy, backscratching, New York City milieu Pecker had detailed — the way Pecker did things with an assorted coterie of celebrity associates, none of whom have faced prosecution save for Donald Trump.
That approach picked up on a theme that defense attorney Todd Blanche leaned heavily on during his opening statements: the alleged crimes in this case are all normal, if not somewhat sordid, features of high-level politics and business. It’s the crude facts of life for many New Yorkers, he suggests: sometimes it’s dirty, but that doesn’t mean it’s a crime.
“And, listen, use your common sense,” Blanche told a panel of jurors that includes corporate attorneys and finance professionals. “We’re New Yorkers. That’s why we’re here.”
Am I wrong to think this is not good strategy to convince lawyers to vote to for acquittal by claiming that everyone does it or by “flooding the zone with shit”.
The question is, is it against the law? I mean we all know that there are reasons not every case is not prosecuted. While there can be nefarious reasons like race, but in most cases it is a matter of degree.
That is not everyone is committing this crime to hide their nature so they can be elected President of the United States.
Now I get I am not your normal corporate lawyer as evidenced by the fact I am posting on TPM. For example in October of 2012 when representing two small (niche) manufacturers in contract negotiations with 3 of the largest companies in the world, the other lawyers and CPAs in the room were telling me how I should convince my clients to close their operations in the States and move offshore and how it would funnel more money into my pocket. This meant there were 2 differences between me and the other corporate lawyers and CPAs in the room; the first is I would never recommend to a client they should close their operations in the States, firing all their American employees, and move offshore so I could make more money and the second was I was supporting Obama and all of them were supporting Mitt Romney.
But I digress. Considering their client, is it good strategy to try and argue that Donald Trump is being persecuted?
It may work as political strategy. But in a court of law before a jury, especially one with professionals including lawyers, I do not see a jury, especially this jury, buying it.
Am I wrong?
"Am I wrong to think this is not good strategy to convince lawyers to vote to for acquittal by claiming that everyone does it or by “flooding the zone with shit”.
You’re right if they were interested in acquittal. But they’re only interested in hanging the jury, which only takes 1. Trump will call an 11-1 vote against him ringing proof of his innocence.
What do reckon he’s charging these folks to take his picture?
“Forget it, jury. It’s Chinatown.”
But most of all, Bove emphasized one thing: all of the sleaze, muck, “mutually interested” self-dealing, and assorted seaminess were simply examples of “standard operating procedure” in the seedy, backscratching, New York City milieu Pecker had detailed — the way Pecker did things with an assorted coterie of celebrity associates, none of whom have faced prosecution save for Donald Trump.
“Lots of New Yorkers walk into banks every day,” said the accused bank robber’s lawyer. “But, none of them ever faced prosecution, … except for my client.”
I hope the prosecution makes the point that things that are legal as part of daily life can become illegal when campaign finance issues are involved. It’s perfectly fine for you to do things for friends outside of politics, pay for their dinner, and so on, but once they enter politics there are rules around how they can accept money from people. It’s important those rules are followed, so we avoid bribing politicians for influence (which happens in other ways, it’s just not supposed to be open). Politicians hiding money or expenditures is also a no no, and that’s what went on here.
So, it’s really irrelevant that this kind of sleazy thing happens all the time, what matters is Trump violated campaign finance rules when using this process to try to hide his extramarital affairs. If they had been smart about it they would have “hired” Daniels as a consultant on the campaign, paid her off, and that would have been legal…the fact they didn’t sure seems to support that they were trying to hide Trump’s connection to her.
I guess we’ll see how the case goes and the jury takes all this in, hopefully they aren’t fooled by claims that everyone behaves like Trump…what a sad state of affairs that would be.
