Trump Opening Statements: ‘Election Fraud,’ Fake News, And a Call For Exhaustion

Oh, believe me, there are several pastors in the Bible Belt that have paid hush money. People know what goes on.

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Did Trump’s lawyer also put in a kind word for Putin? He has some rough edges but he gets things done.

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Blanche’s expression at the top of the piece looks to me like he might be thinking ‘I threw away my good name and reputation for this?’

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Or is he thinking, ‘I hope Wahkeen Feenix plays me in the movie.’?

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In the mythical New York, as I see it in movies and literature, it sounds spot on.

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Blanche just set up the conviction of Trump. By suggesting that “it’s business as usual,” he’s encouraging the prosecution to argue that it’s “Time to end this business, once and for all.”

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Yes, thank you Josh! I won’t be so crass as to ask you about any fart episodes…but if you have any please share!

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Sounds like the Gag order is redundant…

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They need to put him in a Dune-type stillsuit, just one for farts.

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I think the Federal Election Commision needs some work done on it. No resolution for a tie vote for one thing.

On May 6, 2021, the FEC closed an inquiry into whether the payment to Stormy Daniels by Donald Trump violated campaign financial law during the 2016 election. The FEC voted 2-2, between Democrats and Republicans, against a motion to take further action.[33] Republican Vice Chairman Allen Dickerson recused himself, while independent Commissioner Steven Walther did not vote.[34]

Similarly, in June 2021, the FEC found that National Enquirer violated US election laws and $150,000 paid by AMI to Karen McDougal amounted to an illegal campaign contribution. Publisher AMI agreed to a fine of $187,500. However, the FEC divided 3-3 on party lines on a motion to pursue further investigation into Donald Trump, thus closing the investigation.[35]

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Mr. Pecker has heard it all before so I will keep my chuckles to myself.

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Weisselberg took notes re the stormy payoff
Go to msnbc and listen to Maddow’s take on this

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How about the entire country? TRUMP is the one who stole an election, and with the help of Putin and everyone else in his criminal enterprise.

I can hardly imagine the difference in this entire world if Hillary Clinton had not been cheated out of her presidency. The list is too long to contemplate!

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…and sometimes it’s called
a) refusing to let people in line who are thirsty a drink of water. And sometimes it is b) paying to withhold information that all voters should know about. And sometimes it is c) threatening people who are brown or black when they go to vote.

This trial is about b) and THAT is what they DID

All republican tactics

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And I would have got away with it if it weren’t for you meddling kids the fact that I’m a narcissistic, sexaholic pig, whose whole world is like a locker room full of office coolers to brag about my sexploits to every tabloid who’ll listen.

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This. I wonder if the jurors might be much less cynical than Blanche is counting on and may, in fact, be offended that he is asking them to buy into a popular image of New Yorkers as embittered cynics.

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You would have to be brain-damaged to think Cohen paid Daniels $130k just because, and not because Trump paid out the hush money (via Cohen).

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Doesn’t this basically give the prosecution half of what they need to prove? That Trump was indeed committing these crimes to influence the election?

There is indeed nothing wrong with influencing elections unless what you’re doing to influence elections is illegal!

For example, murdering all your opponents in an election would also be influencing the election. That doesn’t make it ok to murder people. That is not democracy!

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There are, of course, both legal and illegal ways to influence an election. The currently “legal” ways are called “democracy” and “dark money”. Trump is not accused of either of those. What he’s accused of is falsifying business records (a crime) in order to illegally hide monetary transactions intended to influence an election (another crime), which are illegally large as contributions (potentially another charge).

Blanche was disingenuous throughout, but perhaps never more so than when he fatuously stated that Trump was “just like you and me.” Personally, I’ve never boinked a porn star, regardless of whether my wife was home with our newborn, or pregnant, or none of the above. And I’ve never falsified business records to cover up such behavior to shield my presidential ambitions from its blowback. If I was on the jury, I’d be mortally offended that my behavior had been equated to any of that. And as for Blanche himself…well, given his current behavior as an Officer of the Court, I would rather not speculate. At least not publicly.

I got a question: Libel laws are strictly written to include actual INTENT to harm. Can (after all this is coming out) HRC sue DAVID PECKER for printing lies which he knew were lies to INJURE her campaign?

Is that not actual MALICE?

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