The Theory of the Case Against Trump
Legal analysts are skeptical.
Shortly after he was arraigned yesterday, the formal list of charges against former President Donald Trump was released. While I have not read them (and, indeed, am unlikely to take the time to do so) most analysts remain skeptical of the prosecution’s theory of the case. Looking only at those who are decidedly anti-Trump:
Vox’s Ian Milhiser (“The dubious legal theory at the heart of the Trump indictment, explained“):
There is something painfully anticlimactic about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment of former President Trump. It concerns not Trump’s efforts to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States, but his alleged effort to cover up a possible extramarital affair with a porn star.
And there’s a very real risk that this indictment will end in an even bigger anticlimax. It is unclear that the felony statute that Trump is accused of violating actually applies to him.
The indictment charges Trump with 34 separate counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, a felony.
[…]
The actual felony counts arise out of allegedly false entries that Trump made in various business records in order to make the payment to Daniels appear to be ordinary legal expenses paid to Cohen.
But Bragg built his case on an exceedingly uncertain legal theory. Even if Trump did the things he’s accused of, it’s not clear Bragg can legally charge Trump for them, at least under the felony version of New York’s false records law.
As Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office who played a significant role in the Trump investigation prior to his resignation in 2022, wrote in a recent book, a key legal question that will determine whether Trump can be charged under the felony version of New York’s false records law has never been resolved by any appellate court in the state of New York.
The felony statute requires Bragg to prove that Trump falsified records to cover up a crime. Bragg has evidence that Trump acted to cover up a federal crime, but it is not clear that Bragg is allowed to point to a federal crime in order to charge Trump under the New York state law.
The answer to this “gnarly legal question,” as Pomerantz put it, is simply unknown. So there is a serious risk that a New York judge will toss out the charges against Trump on technical legal grounds unrelated to the former president’s actual conduct.
And even if Bragg’s legal team convinces New York’s own courts that this prosecution may move forward, there is also a very real danger that the Supreme Court of the United States, with its GOP-appointed supermajority, could decide that it needs to weigh in on whether Trump should be shielded from this prosecution.
The Supreme Court has long held, under a doctrine known as the “rule of lenity,” that “fair warning should be given to the world, in language that the common world will understand, of what the law intends to do if a certain line is passed.” Thus, when the meaning of a criminal statute is unclear, the Constitution sometimes requires that statute to be read narrowly because an unclear criminal law did not give potential defendants “fair warning” that their conduct was illegal.
[…]
Bragg, in other words, has built one of the most controversial and high-profile criminal cases in American history upon the most uncertain of foundations. And that foundation could crumble into dust if the courts reject his legal arguments on a genuinely ambiguous question of law.
Slate‘s Richard L. Hasen (“Donald Trump Probably Should Not Have Been Charged With (This) Felony“):
Back in 2018, I wrote at Slate that Donald Trump’s payments of hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her from speaking and hurting his 2016 U.S. presidential chances was likely a federal campaign finance crime. The feds should have charged him, but they did not, perhaps because of political interference from Trump’s then-attorney general, Bill Barr.
[…]
As difficult as that case would have been, I favored bringing it because I thought there was a good legal argument that these payments were campaign-related and there was strong enough evidence that a jury should decide the question.
[…]
Nonetheless, this new theory still has the old problems the federal case would have, but it also has new, more serious ones. Most importantly, it is far from clear that Trump could be liable for state campaign finance crimes as a federal candidate. Moreover, state prosecutors may be precluded from prosecuting federal candidates for federal crimes under a rule called “preemption,” meaning they have to be brought by federal authorities rather than state authorities. These are thorny issues that likely will have to be resolved by appeals courts over years.
[…]
Trump is not above the law, and if they can prove the misdemeanors, then by all means they should go after him. (However, there may be statute of limitations issues around those.) But this kind of case can give credence to Trump claims of a witch hunt.
As I wrote back in Slate in 2012 about the John Edwards case, it seems bad public policy to allow prosecutors to bring novel and difficult claims against politicians, in part because they may do so for political rather than legal reasons. I would much rather see Trump prosecuted for concealing classified documents or for interfering with the 2020 election and seeking to disrupt Congress’ counting of the Electoral College votes. Those are cases that are on much more solid legal and factual ground.
I would rather see the fire aimed where it belongs: at Trump’s attempts to undermine American democracy and interfere with the peaceful transition of power during the 2020 election. Those kinds of prosecutions can help to support the rule of law. This one may undermine it.
WaPo’s Ruth Marcus (“The Trump indictment is a dangerous leap on the highest of wires“):
I’m not saying prosecutors will lose this case. They could well win, and I hope they do, because a failure to secure a conviction will only inflame Trump and his supporters in their claims that the criminal justice system is being weaponized against them. But the fears I had in the weeks leading up to the indictment about the strength of the case against Trump were in no way allayed by Tuesday’s developments.
[…]
Which leaves open the question of whether New York state prosecutors can transmogrify this conduct into a state crime. Answer: maybe. And don’t be fooled by the 34 counts: That healthy-sounding number doesn’t signify anything about the strength of the case. They will all rise or fall together depending on whether prosecutors’ theory of the case holds up.
The theory is this: New York law makes it a crime to falsify business records. Ordinarily, that is just a misdemeanor. But if the falsification is done with intent to defraud and intent to conceal another crime, that act becomes a felony.
[…]
Okay, but what are the other crimes Trump is accused of covering up? The indictment doesn’t say, but Bragg was asked on Tuesday, and he offered a few possibilities. First, he said, the doctored records “violated New York election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means,” including making false statements. Second, Bragg cited the federal election law cap on contribution limits.
But, but, but. This is not well-trodden legal territory. If I understood Bragg’s argument correctly, there is a certain circularity to saying that a false statement on corporate books becomes a felony, not a misdemeanor, because state election law makes it a misdemeanor to promote a candidacy by unlawful means, such as making false statements.
Moreover, it’s not at all clear that violating a federal law — even if it could be proved that Trump did so — would constitute the kind of other crime that would allow Bragg to bootstrap Trump’s alleged conduct from misdemeanor to felony. As Joshua Stanton, Norman L. Eisen, E. Danya Perry and Fred Wertheimer wrote on the JustSecurity website last month, “the only appellate court in New York to have considered the meaning of ‘offense’ … found that it applied only to New York crimes.”
In addition, Trump’s lawyers will argue that federal election law supersedes state law. The federal law states explicitly that its rules “supersede and preempt any provision of State law with respect to election to Federal office.”
Not everyone agrees, of course. Former Manhattan chief assistant district attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Brookings senior fellow Norman Eisen take to the NYT to proclaim “We Finally Know the Case Against Trump, and It Is Strong.”
With the release of the indictment and accompanying statement of facts, we can now say that there’s nothing novel or weak about this case. The charge of creating false financial records is constantly brought by Mr. Bragg and other New York D.A.s. In particular, the creation of phony documentation to cover up campaign finance violations has been repeatedly prosecuted in New York. That is exactly what Mr. Trump stands accused of.
[…]
While the particulars of Mr. Trump’s case are unique, his behavior is not. Candidates and others have often attempted to skirt the disclosure and dollar limit requirements of campaign finance regulations and falsified records to hide it. Contrary to the protestations of Mr. Trump and his allies, New York prosecutors regularly charge felony violations of the books and records statute — and win convictions — when the crimes covered up were campaign finance violations, resulting in false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity.
[…]
New York appellate courts have held in a long series of cases that intent to defraud includes circumstances in which a defendant acts “for the purpose of frustrating the state’s power” to “faithfully carry out its own law.” To the extent Mr. Trump was covering up campaign contributions that violated New York law, that seems to be exactly what he did.
It’s also worth noting that Mr. Trump was a federal candidate, whereas the other New York cases involved state ones. But court after court across the country has recognized that state authorities can enforce state law in cases relating to federal candidates. Those courts have allowed state cases concerning federal campaign contributions under widely varied circumstances, including for fraudulently diverting funds from political action committees founded to support federal presidential campaigns, violating state law limits on corporate contributions to federal campaigns and transgressing state laws concerning donations to PACs that funded federal campaigns. Some of the examples involve criminal enforcement by state authorities, some civil, but the point is the same: They can act.
So Mr. Bragg’s bringing a state case concerning a federal campaign is hardly novel. In an abundance of caution, he not only alleges violations of state campaign finance law but also alleges federal violations. We believe that is permitted, given that the fraudulent books and records and other relevant statutes refer simply to covering up “another crime” or using “unlawful means” and do not specify whether they need be federal or state.
This approach is wise because to throw out the case, a judge would have to rule that Mr. Trump is covered by neither state nor federal campaign finance law. We think it is unlikely that the courts will embrace that Catch-22.
I am skeptical of the theory under which Trump is being charged with a felony here. I’m more than skeptical of the stacking of charges, treating each check in the hush money scheme as a separate crime rather than accumulated evidence of a single crime. That said, Agnifilo and Eisen have a point here: the Manhattan DA’s office is unique in its vast experience going after high profile financial crimes. They were surely well aware of the criticisms of their legal theory—which have been circulating for weeks now—and decided to prosecute, anyway. Presumably, then, they think they can win.
The only real hope is this gets pile-on from Georgia, and he gets indicted for something with fewer theoretical problems.
Trump has a persecution complex. Same with what was once a loud minority among the GOP coalition. But now it is most of the party as everyone else jumped ship.
This kind of shit validates it, as quoted in the OP. This is like trying to prove there are no monsters in your frightened child’s room and then finding the hobo from Mulholland Drive in the kid’s closet.
I’ll start by quoting Browning “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?”
Next, I’d be more concerned had we not heard similar warnings in the Chauvin and Holmes trials.
IMO, people are tired of seeing the powerful and/or rich abuse their power and play the system in their favor, and many will do something about it when given the opportunity.
Last, I will wait for the trial to play out and see what happens, rather than exhaust myself with predictions and scenarios.
This doesn’t pass the smell test.
Obviously, I’m not a lawyer. Also, there tends to be a lot of (often unwarranted, IMO) deference to suspects in white-collar cases.
But…
It is also a general legal principle that legal interpretations should not lead to absurd outcomes.
Looking at this case, there is a NY law that says that falsifying business records (in NY) to cover up a crime is a felony.
If one would accept the theory that said crime can’t be federal, that would mean that the state of NY would have no recourse to prosecute a (derived) crime committed on their territory. Which would be OK if the feds could step in. But they, in turn, can’t because falsifying business records is state matter, not federal. So they can’t prosecute either.
Which would mean that there would no way whatsoever to punish certain behavior that is legally recognized as, in fact, being criminal.
Which leads to an absurd outcome:
“Falsifying business records to cover up a state crime is a legitimate felony. However, falsifying those same business records to cover up a federal crime cannot be punished by anyone as a felony.”
This is pretty weird, no?
Generally, the delegation of powers (to federal and state authorities, respectively) is about delegating powers, not about finding that – oops! – no one has any power.
So I’m very skeptical about the idea that Bragg overstepped.
It should also be noted here that Friedman Agnifilo and Eisen (who believe that Bragg has a strong case) cite actual jurisprudence – which the skeptics notably don’t.
@drj: This is exactly the problem.
If one can commit state crimes on the grounds that they are done to avoid federal crimes, then there is no law at all.
If a person, for example, violates California’s reasonably strict gun ownership laws in order to threaten a federal border patrol agent, then may that not be charged by California for their violation of those gun ownership laws simply because the threats were against a federal border patrol agent?
Absurd.
I don’t know the depth of the Agnifilo/Eisen research, but I seriously doubt that many of the pundits have done a serious dive into the case law that would surround an analysis of Bragg’s theory of criminal liability. But that case law is where any attempt to dismiss this would go. So, like Kathy, I will wait and see.
I will also not assume that, just because this is the first case charged, it will be the first to get to a verdict. There are a lot of cards still to be played.
@Tony W:
Precisely.
This doesn’t exactly strike me as sound legal analysis.
IANAL…But I think it’s absurd to imagine Bragg would invite this level of chaos and scrutiny if he were not confident in both his case and his approach.
Keep in mind…Cohen pled guilty to this crime in which Trump was, previous to yesterday, an un-indicted co-conspirator. And Pecker/AMI has acknowledged to prosecutors that its payments to McDougal were done specifically to assist Trump’s election bid and were made “in concert” with his campaign.
A key point to remember when reading these “the case is weak” analysis is that a lot of libertarian-ish types deep down believe fraud should actually be legal.
@Joe: @daryl and his brother darryl:
So Vox, Slate, Post have some guys talking from general knowledge, NYT has some people who have actually done their homework on the case specifics. Who to believe? (My guess – confirmation bias).
As someone mentioned yesterday, Item # 19 in the Statement of Facts has Trump wanting to delay the Stormy payoff until after the election, with the motivation to stiff Stormy on the payment. Pretty conclusive evidence that the motive was affecting the election, other possible motivations of insignificant relevence.
@Kathy: People being tired and convictions obtained and standing proper scrutiny are entirely unrelated – and properly so lest you desire to become what you profess to despise. @Stormy Dragon: An observation as typically entirely residing in a baseless smear and a Mid-western mega-farm of a straw for strawman, rather unrelated to the actual subject or writers quoted, both of whom have Left credentials.
Party political partisan reactions from MAGA and Left in the end will be not very meaningful in the face of law.
Trump called for protests and no one showed up. He submitted meekly. That’s more important, politically, than the charges themselves. This is a guy whose culties picture him as the crossover character between the Bible and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He sat at the defendant’s table and provided no entertainment to his base. He was but a man.
At the same time Ron DeSantis was humiliated by Disney lawyers. Lindsay Graham cried like Jimmy Swaggart. Has anyone seen Rudy Giuliani? Jared? Ivanka threw her father under the bus. Russian media is mocking Trump. Fox News is being exposed. Polls are not favoring book banning. All of it interesting. And fun.
But most importantly we won the judge’s race in Wisconsin by 10 points. In razor-thin Wisconsin. There is no other issue that would give us Wisconsin by 10. SCOTUS and abortion will be on the ballot in 2024.
There’s an ill wind blowing for Republicans. They’re going to nominate a criminal in an election year where abortion will be very much at the forefront.
@Michael Reynolds:
And apparently Trump’s speech last night at MAGA-Lardo fell flat.
@Michael Reynolds:
Abortion is an “indicator species.” It is a quick guide to all the religious war/culture war issues, you can infer where someone stands on them all by where they are on abortion.
The coverage is proving the old adage about a liberal being a conservative who has been arrested.
I don’t really see any pundits disputing the statements of fact. Like Milhiser, they seem to fall back on “Well sure he lied, and falsified documents in order to hide the payments to a mistress in order to further his campaign, and sure those are crimes, but technically they are outside the state’s purview so..”
This is almost word for word the sort of “bleeding heart liberal” stuff that were parodied in Law & Order movies like Dirty Harry back in the day. “Sure he beat that woman and raped her and stole her purse, but technically the search warrant had a typo so…”
Its entirely possible that this legal analysis is correct, I really can’t say. But what’s astonishing is that almost half of the American electorate see this sort of criminality and corruption as irrelevant.
@Chip Daniels:
Or just less important than getting their precious culture wars johnsons stroked or g-spots tickled.
There’s also the matter of engagement to consider.
Overall people will engage more with things that frighten them, like Benito skating on all charges. So that’s what you’ll see a lot of to drive engagement, whether it be done on purpose or not.
This is another thing out there that may do more damage to Trump than anticipated.
Funny. I don’t recall any such handwringing when Republicans and white men in government were threatening to prosecute someone over some silly irrelevant emails. Media analysts were all-in on that. But that person was a woman backed a diverse, multicultural coalition led by black voters.
America’s establishment doesn’t think the rules apply to rich white men. That’s why Republicans and their hypocritical minions in the press — which helped destroy the popularity Hillary enjoyed as Sec. of State with the dumb, sexist Emailghazigatepalooza Lock Her Up witch hunt — think Trump is above the law, nevermind their protestations otherwise.
America’s legal system will stand idly by while petty criminals and unarmed black people are murdered in the streets by cops without due process, but round come time to sic the law on rich and powerful white folk, all of a sudden here come the excuses why nothing should be done.
Thank you to the black prosecutors in Manhattan and Atlanta refusing to play along. And just as black voters opposed Trump at a 90+% clip, it’s no coincidence that black prosecutors are the ones breaking the seal on holding Trump accountable, unlike the media and political establishment stuffed with white men who have enabled Trump’s white supremacist fascism and let him off the hook again and again.
@Michael Reynolds: And don’t forget, Marjorie Taylor Green showed up in Manhattan with a bull horn… and then was shouted and whistled down until she turned tail and ran away five minutes later. Then tweeted that the mean libs were “coming to assault that can cause audible damage.”
In other words, she ran away because people shouted at her. And then she ordered the mayor of NYC to arrest everyone who was mean to her. To which congressman Daniel Goldman replied “Welcome to my district, Representative Snowflake.”
This is the face of a Republican Congressional majority that only prizes strength and a willingness to wage war. And she was scared by some whistles.
Even the MAGAs are going to start seeing through these frauds.
@Michael Reynolds:
Apparently, the Wisconsin Republicans picked up an open state senate seat and now have sufficient majorities to impeach and convict at will. Also to overrule vetos. My understanding is that with the North Carolina legislator changing parties that North Carolina is in the same position: so long as the Republicans there stick together, they can override vetos and impeach/convict anyone they want.
I join Dr. Joyner in not reading the charges against Trump. In my case, I don’t care. Lock him up! Lock him up by any means foul or fair. It’s clear that the law is not some immovable and eternal standard but a pliable process that is used by the powerful to achieve their ends. I was under the illusion that the law served some great goals, but I had to ignore the use of the law to oppress ethnic and gender minorities that it has over the years. This occurred while pundits were hailing original intent as a veil for their actions. Citizens United, guns for all, and abortion bans are recent examples. Let’s lock Trump up and throw away the key!
@DK:
It’s almost like there is some deep-seated psychological discomfort (and not just in the establishment!) with the idea that the powerful can (let alone, ought to) be held responsible.
Why else all the hand wringing in the vein of “Imagine what it means if even an ex-President isn’t safe?”
I, for one, can’t wrap my head around it.
@Slugger:
Preach. The real problem the establishment has with the prosecution of the Orange Menace is that said legal power is now in the hands of the ‘wrong’ people. Namely, those ethnic and gender minorities of note.
We have waited for white men in power to stop shucking and jiving and bumfumbling, to quit whistling past the graveyard, and to help us prevent this Putin-puppet pro-fascist from destroying our constitutional democratic republic with his constant lies, perversion, bigotry, and narcissistic personality disorder.
We are not waiting any longer.
The Times notes that one payment to Cohen included the income tax he would be paying. They note that this might be a way to get Trump on tax fraud. Maybe @Harvardlaw92 could comment–this seems to be his area of expertise.
I don’t think many people care about Trump being charged. But they aren’t going to be against it regardless of what happens. And they aren’t going to be filled with gravitas about the fate of a politician. Better yet, Trump is going to be raving about this and whatever else happens, and it’s going be boring as hell. The midwit commentators who are infused with deep thoughts about whether or not Bragg has gone too far are missing how pathetic it is to carry water for politicians.
@wr:
Did you never see a chickenhawk before?
IANAL, but the consensus seems to be this indictment is based on a “novel” legal theory. So I’d be wary of anyone expressing confidence one way or another as this seems to be a grand experiment.
@DK:
For the umpteenth time, Clinton wasn’t criminally investigated over irrelevant emails, but for mishandling and improperly retaining classified information. For the umpteenth time, anytime there is such mishandling, there will be an investigation with a high potential of criminal charges. The FBI investigation in Clinton’s case was completely consistent and legitimate.
And Trump’s investigation for similar mishandling is ongoing. The case against him on that is much stronger than what’s going on in NY and is also much stronger than the case against Clinton.
@charon: I am concerned by any assertion of fact about Trump’s motive that rests on the uncorroborated testimony of Michael Cohen but, assuming you can establish Item #19 that Trump wanted to delay the Stormy payoff until after the election, it’s pretty clear evidence that the purpose was to affect the election and nothing else.
For the lawyers and the legally minded in our little community, here’s a transcript of the Cheeto arraignment.
@Michael Cain:
Yeah, it’ll be interesting. We’ll find out just how gerrymandered Wisconsin is.
@Michael Cain:
If the Wis legislature impeaches, the Dem governor appoints the replacement. Not much to be gained.
@Michael Cain:
Can they? The PA Gop tried to impeach the Philadelphia district attorney essentially for being a Democrat and even though the vote passed, the courts threw it out because no matter how many people vote for it, there has to be an actual accusation of a crime.
@drj: But if the crime is prosecuted as the misdemeanor that it is how does that show that law doesn’t exist?
Here’s Lawfare’s take on things. Worth reading although gets technical in parts and expects you to keep up.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/and-so-it-begins-first-charges-drop-against-former-president-donald-trump
@Andy:
For the umpteenth time, you are full of shit on this — too clever by half, just not all that clever. In order to find alleged mishandling of classified information, you have to care enough to actually look. Nobody cared to look at the private email server housed at the RNC the Bush administration used and magically deleted tens of thousands of emails from, to discover whether or not there was classified information that was mishandled. Nobody cared to look at Colin Powell’s private emails. Nobody cared to look at James Comey’s private emails. Nobody cared to look at Donald Trump’s private emails and unsecure phones, or those of Jared and Ivanka Trump.
The FBI non-case against Clinton was nonsensical illegitimate hogwash predicated on bullshit sexist double standards, a total waste of time and money that was never going to go anywhere or find any criminal case worth pursuing. Because James Comey knew from the beginning that was no there there: rules in place at time allowed government officials to curate their emails at their discretion, which is why nobody cared about this type of thing before Clinton came along and her bullies found a cudgel with which to manipulate gullible white voters.
And the result of this white nonsense anti-Hillary bias — the rise of Trumpist fascism — has been utterly disastrous. No matter how much white men who were duped want to dig in their heels and stubbornly refuse to admit how badly they got it wrong.
All this is premature: we don’t even know what the specific legal theory behind the case is.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/alvin-bragg-trump-case-still-mystery-1234709858/
And not knowing that doesn’t really tell us anything since, as White points out, it is fairly standard for state cases to not reveal that information at this stage.
@DK:
In addition to what DK said …
Sure but all of it was uncovered in a totally bad faith investigation of her role in Benghazi. What they thought they were going to find is evidence that she actively prevented anyone in the area from helping those in the outpost because she is a mean evil pedo bitch (otherwise know as a democrat). Instead they settled for mishandling classified information. While it was worth an investigation it was all about information buried in an e-mail thread sent to her by other people and to my knowledge none of the other people, who would have been the ones culpable, were ever referred to the DOJ.
So a bad faith congressional hearing, came up with nothing and they settled for a bad faith charge of mishandling classified information, focusing exclusively on Clinton and ignoring all the senders of said information, which would be curious if you were generally upset about those sorts of things.
interesting excerpt:
https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/the-non-trivial-crimes-of-donald
It will be a long time before we learn all that the DA has – long time until all the other shoes drop.
@Slugger:
Oh, it’s almost as if we have a legal theory* that specifically points that out. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is called. I mean, it’s so obscure that it has never entered into public discussion. And it’s certainly never been the subject of straw arguments by prominent personalities prattling on out of their depth.
Can anybody jog my memory here?
*well, one that birthed a few offshoots specific to social contexts.
@Kurtz:
It’s the vacuum tube television theory of law, right? No, wait…
Lawfare’s take on this is worth a look:
And So It Begins: On the First Charges to Drop Against Former President Donald Trump
@Kurtz: Well, I’ve been seeing the connections to Critical Legal Theory in the comment thread, but I don’t think that’s the one you’re looking for.
I was being sarcastic. I didn’t label it. I didn’t cram enough snark into the box.
My fault.
@Stormy Dragon:
Ha!
@Just nutha:
Yes. CLS/CRT was what I was referencing.
And Rebecca Solnit’s as well:
Trump had always been above the law, until it turned on him
@Not the IT Dept.: Very useful, rather more so than either pro or anti commentaries from party political partisans.
Stupid question, perhaps, but why is taking money from the business to handle a personal/campaign thing not just plain, simple embezzling?
Is it the type of company?
@anjin-san: It took me a minute to sort out the headline you cited. Interesting how “charges dropping” and “dropping charges” have opposite meanings.
@Not the IT Dept.:
Sorry, missed where you had posted Lawfare’s excellent analysis ahead of me.
@Gustopher: Why would it be “embezzling” (although one has to cite specific code, acceptance of money to handle something is not a fact that says a “fraudulent taking” which is the foundation of most definitions in common law)?
There’s nothing criminal evoked in that statement so rather escapes why one would think it is a crime.
Else the LawFare article is very useful and brings out an item which
Emphasis added
The potential reliance of same sovereign law (that is of the state and level) rather than another sovereign is reassuring of foundations.
Additionally the emphasis
that also is an item that is useful to have attention drawn to, for avoidance of jumping to ill-informed conclusions.
The tedious populist knee-jerking from MAGA and Left about law and elites – really expressing the two sides of the same coin of resentment – is boring and as anyone who has spent time in a generally lawless or weak legal system jurisdiction, is simply simplistic nonsense.
@DK:
You are simply wrong about Clinton being singled out.
No one knew Clinton had mishandled classified information until she, herself, turned over the evidence by submitting official documents with classified information to the archives. No one “cared enough to actually look” at Clinton’s emails either – in fact hardly anyone knew that she even had a private server, including most people in the State Department and the National Archives. Clinton had all the same deference that you whine about with Powell and the RNC until she fucked up.
The nexus for the investigation was her providing official government records that had classified information in them. At that point, an investigation was not optional. At that point that the government had the legal ability to “care enough” to look deeper through her files in great detail. At that point, the government could not give her deference and could not ignore that classified info had been mishandled.
You may be upset about it, but the fact is that the government never had the legal ability to dig into the RNC emails, Powell’s, or any of a number of other cases. Had a similar nexus to mishandling of classified been found there, then they, too, would have been investigated. That no such nexus was found and, therefore, no investigation was spawned, is not evidence of evil white men conspiring against poor Clinton.
Again, the fact is that Clinton had exactly the same legal deference as Powell, the RNC, etc., had until she gave the government actionable evidence that she had mishandled classified info. Once that happened, an investigation was mandatory for her, just as it is for Biden, just as it is for Trump, and just as it has been for everyone else in a similar situation.
No one “cared enough to look” for classified material in Biden’s garage either – for years and years and years. No one has cared to look through Obama’s private files or emails. The same can be said with the vast majority of government officials from both Democratic and Republican administrations. And the reason is that the government doesn’t have the authority to go looking through private files without due cause. And that was true of Clinton until her own actions changed the circumstances and produced due cause., which is the fact you and others continually elide.
This same standard is being applied to both Biden and Trump. They had the same deference as Powell, the RNC, Clinton and everyone else has until actionable information of the mishandling of classified information was found. And once that happened, the result was completely consistent – investigations were launched – even on the sitting President – as is required by law. Clinton was treated no differently.
But let’s engage your argument for a minute and ask: What is your alternative scenario? What do you think should have happened when Clinton turned over documents with classified info? Do you think the government should have made an exception for her and just shrugged and done nothing, contrary to the letter of the law?
Here’s how I look at it:
– One either thinks all cases of mishandling classified information should be investigated or one doesn’t.
– Either one thinks that all private communications and documents should be trolled through looking for classified information or one doesn’t.
So which side of each of those do you sit on, and do you apply that evenly in all cases?
Because to me, the argument that Clinton is a victim because she was stupid enough to turn over documents that had classified info in them, a self-inflicted wound that guaranteed an investigation, while Powell, the RNC, or whatever Republicans you don’t like did not make that stupid mistake, is not an argument based on any principle.
@Rick DeMent:
Whether one thinks it was bad faith or not is irrelevant and entirely subjective.
The National Archives and Congress both have clear authority to request official government records. The archives didn’t have those records because of Clinton’s decision to use a non-governmental system for her own convenience and because she never bothered to sort or turn them over until they were formally requested by the archives and Congress.
So she and her lawyers went through what emails and electronic documents they had to determine what were official records and what were private communications, and they began to turn those over. When they did that, they submitted records with classified info, and that’s when the FBI got involved and gave the government the authority to go looking deeper.
@Gustopher:
It’s fine, I think, as long you document it properly and if there are partners/etc. you don’t conceal it. If you own a construction company and rent a villa in Italy for the summer on the company’s dime you can’t pretend it’s for business purposes.
@Gustopher:
I think since Trump is the sole owner of said company, it’s hard to claim someone is embezzling money from themselves.
@Modulo Myself: Renting a villa in Italy for the summer on the account of one’s company can very well have a real business goal – and is done – hosting retreats, marketing events etc. Even providing a residence to an executive although in such case under the US tax law this can readily become a taxable compensation to said executive (insofar as I have Delaware corporate affiliates we use for certain USA related business, I am quite cogniscent of this rule set).
Mr Weissman, the convicted CFO, and Trump Org got into trouble over the misreporting and concealment of such compensation from the tax authorities. Had what they did been properly reported as compensation to him (versus a pure deductible expense), and taxes paid, it would have been perfectly legal. Perhaps stupid business but perfectly legal.
@Andy:
IMO they appear to have him for lesser/included convictions for the misdemeanors, those seem well-documented, it’s the felony aspect appears to be a bit of a stretch. The pundits are suggesting that aspect is the “whole case” but it’s typical for DAs to charge for the moon when perps refuse to plea bargain, knowing they can get at least some of it. Hopefully SWIAL will vet this comment.
@Andy:
You are (at best) disingenuous.
You do know that the DoJ released a report (in 2018) on the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation, don’t you?
Some of the report’s findings (pp. 497-8):
In other words, Comey went rogue trying to protect his job in case the Republicans would win the 2016 elections.
But Clinton wasn’t singled out? FFS, man.
I suspect this case will not be what we’re talking about by the end of this month. The E. Jean Carol case is scheduled to start April 25th. Shit may be stirred.
Later we should have the indictments from Jack Smith and the Georgia case.
I love the hole Trump’s digging for the GOP. The hole we’re in involves an unimpressive vice president, an octogenarian and a weak bench.
@Gustopher: I haven’t been reading the charges or the commentary therein, but I don’t think “embezzling” describes what is happening. To whom would Trump have a fiduciary obligation that isn’t named Trump? But I’m sure that some lawyer type will explain why it would be embezzlement and learn me sumthin in the process.
@Lounsbury:
I’ll take the knee-jerking over the jerking you do in ~75% if your posts.
Look, if you want to argue elites don’t seek to capture policy-making bodies, be my guest. But you are arguing against quite a bit of research spread across all the social sciences.
Do you really think the type of person who would exploit a weak legal system solely exists in places with weak legal systems?
Further, it’s not as if these societies are siloed. Whether exploited via private and/or public means, it’s not as if those weak jurisdictions don’t benefit people from the more stable, wealthy nations.
If anyone is being simplistic, it’s you.
@Stormy Dragon:
Corporations are people too, friend!
I’ll just assume the sole proprietor companies allow the proprietor to treat it as a separate entity or not as they find it convenient. A quantum corporation existing as both a wave and a particle, or a floor wax and a dessert topping.
Ain’t nobody got time to read whatever Louseberry wrote.
@Michael Cain: I bet Tony Evers would be just fine with the Republican crazies immediately impeaching a supreme court justice who won by ten points. I can see him going on TV in prime time and making a speech in which he says the Republicans have decided that no votes count but their own, and they’re going to do whatever they want no matter what the public votes for — but this stops now. And then he would reappoint her to the court — since he appoints in case of a vacancy — and announces that he will keep doing this no matter how many time the Republicans try to overturn an election simply because they lost.
@Andy:
Nah, you are wrong. She was singled out.
To begin, your facts are wrong. Clinton did not deliver her emails “to the archives” mindlessly of her own violation. The slippery slope down to Emailghazigatepalooza was not your context-free vaccum in which Hillary just up and one day decided to hand over emails “to the archives,” but rather the bad faith House Select Committee on Benghazi — and to be sure, that bad faith is very relevant — combing through Clinton’s communications so Republicans’ thirty-year effort to destroy her might finally bear fruit.
That’s how the alleged mishandling of classified info was discovered. That’s the context people like you like to memory hole when you’re tantruming about Clinton’s alleged “stupidity” — nevermind that she could run circles around you intellectually every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Further, you blatantly contradict yourself when you try to claim government had no to ability to look into Bush Inc.’s private emails but then state “the National Archives and Congress both have clear authority to request official government records” — a predictable inconsistency when you’ re dedicated to jamming the square peg of white males’ Hillary Derangement Syndrome into the round hole of denying sexism and its double standards.
Long before the Hillary email affair, it was known Colin Powell and others in the Bush Admin used private emails for government business, and that said admin had deleted tens of thousands of emails in the middle of the Valerie Plame Affair. So to answer the question of what should have happened and how to apply standards evenly, Congress should have and could have subpoenad Bush administration officials — forcing them to hand over emails and servers — to comb through them and review for the handling of classified info and other potential criminality.
But of course no one cared to do so because they weren’t a feminist headed to the Oval Office on the strength of the black vote. So anyone claiming she was treated the “exact same” either does not know the meaning of the word exact, is painfully naive, or is as stupid as his own entirely subjective assessments of Hillary’s brainpower.
The ex post facto treatment of Biden’s and Trump’s classified records are a moot point here, proving nothing vis a vis Clinton: those matters have elevated from administrative kerfuffles to criminal probes because of the convulsions unleashed by But Her Emails, to blunt charges of bias and hypocrisy.
@drj:
Quoted for emphasis.
@dazedandconfused:
My understanding is the misdemeanors do not apply because the statute of limitations has already expired.
@drj:
That passage refers primarily to Comey’s public statements in July and October about the investigation, and does not suggest or imply that the investigation itself was invalid.
IOW, regardless of who was the FBI director, or assuming Comey had followed procedure strictly and made no mistakes or errors of judgment, Clinton would still have been investigated by the FBI for mishandling classified information. The investigation of Clinton was, therefore, completely legitimate and she wasn’t “singled out.” As noted many times now, when evidence regarding the mishandling of classified information is discovered it is investigated and Clinton is not special in that regard.
Now, if you want to criticize the parts of the investigation itself and how it was handled, particularly Comey’s decisions about what to disclose to the public (and there were other mistakes made by people other than Comey that were politically relevant), and assert that those mistakes were prejudicial to Clinton’s political fortunes, then I have no disagreement with that except to point out that’s a subjective judgment. Personally, it’s hard to know how the counterfactual in which Comey said nothing would have turned out for Clinton politically given the proclivities of the media to speculate in extreme ways.
Agency fuckups in high profile investigations are not good (see also the Carter Page FISA warrant for an example from the Trump investigation) but mistakes are going to happen and the fact that they happen doesn’t mean that Clinton or Trump or anyone else is getting “singled out” – as the report you linked to makes clear.
@DK:
I’ll just start by saying that the fact that you often resort to racist arguments that impute motives based on skin color – but only white people for some reason – is not very convincing and gives the impression that you are compensating for a weak or indefensible position.
Speaking of that, just a quick rundown of most of what’s wrong in your latest:
– Whether you think the Benghazi investigation was bad faith, Congress has the authority to request government documents. Full stop. Clinton was required to provide them. The archives asked for them too. Clinton was required to provide them to the archives.
What she provided had classified information and when that happens, an investigation is mandatory. Lots of people, including those who are subject to unfair Congressional inquiries – provide information that doesn’t contain mishandled classified information which triggers an FBI criminal investigation. So you continue to elide Clinton’s role, at multiple points, in precipitating the situation she found herself in. You can keep complaining about “white men” all you want, and dumb partisan rubes will believe you and upvote your comments here, but the reality is that Clinton had classified information on her server and then made herself the subject of a criminal investigation by turning it over.
– As has been pointed out to you multiple times now, when Powell was SECSTATE the DoS computer system was antiquated and it could not send emails to anyone outside the department – not even to other government agencies. Everyone, including Powell, was forced to use private email because of this, and it was Powell who commissioned a new system, the one that was in place by the time Clinton got the job.
– Secondly, as has also been pointed out multiple times to you, the record retention policies of the early aughts and earlier were quite different from late aughts when Clinton got the job. I could go into detail on these, as I have in the past, but I’m sure you will just ignore them again. The TLDR version is that Powell did not have nearly the same rules for electronic records that Clinton did.
So the equivalence you and others keep drawing between Powell and Clinton are not supported by the facts.
– Thirdly, I agree with you about what Congress should have done WRT to the Bush administration. But they didn’t. You should take up that complaint with those in Congress who didn’t do what you wish they had done, particularly the members of your party that were in control of Congress and the Senate from 2007-2011. Your party’s failure to do that doesn’t magically exonerate Clinton.
On this you are wrong – this isn’t ex post facto – the law is very clear on this issue and has been clear for a very long time.
Anyway, that’s it for me for this rehash.
@Kurtz: The tedious straw men you ideological partisans set up are really very boring.
No statement in the least was made about “elite capture” or the like.
Rather the statement was that without law, the situation for the powerless is rather worse, to be added in actual real world, rather than idealised abstractions. One can if one is not in partisan knee jerking derive some reflexion avoidance of simplistic thinking, however unlikely it seems that will occur amongst the ideological partisans.
@Gustopher: Ah yes, the childish deformations of user names as evasion for prefering partisan posturing prattle.
The Trump Organisation is not a single corproation, but made up of a whole bowl of spaghetti of largely limited liability companies, whose likely specific legal form is tax transparent partnershi, with as it is generally understood family ownerships, apparently drawing heavily on Trusts. Your wondering on embezzlement is, as the expression goes in science, “not even wrong”, it is irrelevant.
Of course you can remain militantly ignorant and prefer to prattle on with empty partisan posturing in a Left version of the MAGA deliberate ignorance you lot here rather do love to unironically bang on about in a kind of pathetically unaware hypocrisy.
@Andy:
Yeah, I have to second that. I got an “old white men” screed because I had the temerity to suggest that HRC’s messaging in the 2016 election kinda sucked (which it did).
Anyway, it reminded me of one reason why I took an extended break from OTB.
@wr:
We’ve been headed in this direction for some time.
Apparently, “The rule of law, not the rule of Janet” became a bit of a catchphrase in Wisconsin. The idea that the only legitimate road to power in America runs, or should run, through the GOP has become deeply rooted in Republican politics.
@Andy: As an American who experiences actual, real racism, my pointing that collectively American white men have some political blind spots that cause the majority of their votes to go to a racist, fascist, homophobic, sexist party — and to unqualified, unfit buffoons like Trump — does not make those of you who feel aggrieved when hearing this victims of racism.
No, I should take up the fact the Bush administration was not subject to bad faith examinations of their private emails with y’all who keep insisting, falsely, that Clinton was treated “the exact same.” You’ve just contradicted yourself yet again by admitting the Bush administration maybe should have been so investigated — rather than admit this alone disproves your claims equivalent treatment, you obsfucate with a partisan attack on Democrats.
So if my comments are receiving upvotes (insert eye roll here) it’s likely because observers enjoy seeing an overinflated ego who denigrates them as “dumb rubes” repeatedly deflate his own arguments with contradictory assertions — while refusing to admit when he is wrong.
Whether the investigations were launched by Republicans or should have been launched by Democrats, no, Hillary was not given the deference given to Bush administration.
It’s also not true that there was some great substantive chasm between recordkeeping rules governing Clinton and Powell. Yes, the National Archives did issue guidelines in 2009 requiring officials to preserve their private goverment-related emails, but those rules still gave her wide latitude in curating her emails for archival at her discretion. Major overhauls did not come until after Clinton left State.
Which, if true, is a different argument, as I’m obviously referring to how potential violations of said law are handled. They’ve been anything but consistent on that.
@anjin-san:
And I still say that it was not Hillary’s message but old white men’s politics that sucked in 2016. 90+% black voters heard Hillary’s message and thought it was fine. Once again, only white men — in particularly older white men — chose to give a supermajority of their votes to the patholgical lying racist and fascist.
Smart, moral, decent people don’t need “messaging” to figure out Trump is manifestly unfit for office. I remain mystified as to why and majority of old white male voters can’t figure this out on their own, and why others want to blame “messaging” for that screwup.
What’s amazing is that no one is disputing that Trump broke the law. The debate is over whether he can be charged with it or not.
@Hal_10000:
Truth, truthily truthed.
Only took 68 comments to get to the takeaway.
Saddle up that hobbyhorse.
@DK:
About 30% of voters are White males. In 2020 ~40% of those White men voted blue. 40% of 30% is 12%. If my math is correct. 12% is the same slice as the Black vote. IOW more White men voted for Biden than did Black voters of all sexes.
If we don’t have quite a large number of White men on our side, we are screwed. And they are evidently persuadable – so persuadable we cut the gap in half between 2016 and 2020. But the larger point is that the tendency to generalize and dehumanize various groups of people based on external factors like race or sex is no different in principle when done on the Left than it is when done on the Right. It may be White folks’s ‘turn’, but that doesn’t make it any more rational.
FYI in 2016 the red/blue gap among White males was 30 points. In 2020 the gap was cut almost in half to 17 points. Overall Whites are still ~60% of Democrats, making them by far the largest racial group in the Democratic Party. The number of Senate seats we can win without a large number of White voters is zero. House races are not much better. So I’m not quite seeing the electoral logic of regularly shitting on a demo that could, with a difference of a couple more points, give us the White House forever.
Put it in WW2 terms. Blacks are the Brits – in the fight from Day one. Whites are the Americans – late to the party, hypocritical as to some goals, but also indispensable.
@DK:
That’s not something I said. Why do you feel the need to imply I did?
Oh, I don’t know about that. Maybe some of them did not really dig Hillary or her message, but correctly saw Trump as a racist who would go after people of color, so they – quite reasonably – voted in their own interest.
Did you not notice that I said it was her “messaging,” not her “message,” that had problems? They are two different things you know. Again, you are mischaracterizing, or perhaps misunderstanding what I said. It could just be that you are in a hurry to go on the offensive and don’t read carefully, or make an effort to figure out what people are really about before you go after them.
@DK:
Well, for one thing, not everyone is all that smart. Most people struggle to understand our extraordinarily complex world, including the generally smart, sophisticated, and highly educated folks that hang out here.
It’s hard work for this crowd, and we often fall short. So someone with an IQ of 98 and a high school education might REALLY be having trouble figuring things out. So maybe they turn to Fox News. If they live in a red state, they’re a good chance that’s what friend, family and co-wokers do. Now they are hooked into a very effective perpetual rage machine. And there is no shortage of church fathers who are basically spewing bile. But church fathers are supposed to be moral leaders, yes?
Our hypothetical MAGA person may have been told since they were a small child to listen to what they are told in church.
Stop looking at people who have the commonality of race, age, etc. as monolithic blocks. They aren’t. Stop over-simplifying complex issues. Listen harder, judge less. This is the advice of someone who is presumably older than you who hopes he’s picked up a bit of wisdom on the way.
@Michael Reynolds: Very nice comment. Love.
@anjin-san:
I know about that. Hillary’s approval rating remains very very among black voters. We categorically reject the lies old white are still telling about Hillary Clinton, to deflect from the fact that a majority of white male voters did something selfish and awful by voting for Donald Trump. There’s nothing wrong with Hillary Clinton or her message or her messaging or any of that semantical game foolishness. The problem is the people that voted for Trump.
That’s not a genaralization. That’s just data that your white fragility does not like hearing.
Black people are among the most churchy demographics in the country. Church is not the problem. There’s plenty of educated white men who continue to lie about and attack Hillary Clinton — y’all do it here on the time. And it’s the exact same bullshit that helped elect Donald Trump, demonstrating that not enough has been learned. Why you get to judge but I can’t?
So I would counter: either stop giving advice you yourself won’t take, or stop the playing victim. Stop thinking that splitting tedious hairs about message versus messaging (my eyes literally cannot roll hard enough) makes you clever — please! And since you get to judge Hillary Clinton, stop telling me that I don’t get to judge those whose smears of her helped elect white supremacist fascism, who gave their votes to a patholgical lying Putin-puppet pervert who tweeted a White Power video on 28 June 2020. Stop muddying the waters by overthinking simple matters of right vs. wrong. Stop telling people who’ve heard bombs and n-bombs every year of their life we are under any obligation to “listen” to people whose rhetoric and votes put our lives at risk. Listen to black voters.
This is the advice of some who — from having grown up in Marjorie Taylor-Greene country with these human trashbags and their lame excuses to till now — has from direct experience forgotten more about racism and homophobia in America than you think you know.
@Hal_10000:
It’s almost a certainty that Trump committed misdemeanor business fraud in Manhattan. The question is the theory by which prosecutors are trying to turn it into felony business fraud.
@Andy:
Sure, but what is not subjective is the way that utterly ignored every single individual who sent those emails to Clinton focusing exclusively on Clinton. If it were simply an exercise in accountability why would that have done that? The answer is of course because they weren’t interested in smearing anyone but Clinton. That makes the determination of bad faith a lot more credible and likely.
But sure keep your head in the sand by all means.
@Rick DeMent:
I’m probably misunderstanding you. Are you referring to the people who sent the docs/emails that were classified and found on her server? If so, can you unpack more how those people would’ve known that the emails or documents they were sending to the Secretary of State’s email address were being routed to a home server instead of a government server? Or am I just misunderstanding you? If so, my apologies.
@DK
So do I. Always did. And in 2016 I voted for her, sent her money, went to see her speak in person and argued long and hard many times about why people should vote for her.
Indeed. But you keep making it about “white people”. It comes off as a different flavor of “Look, I’m not a racist, but we do need to talk about black on black crime…”.
How exactly have I “judged” her? I said her messaging was bad. I literally can’t roll my eyes hard enough…
Perhaps I am not making my meaning clear enough. I’m not talking about judging Trump voters. I’m talking about you’re – apparently at least – trying to put the stink of Trump’s election on white folks as a group. I’m talking about you going off on people in here – you know, the “arrogant old white men”.
I never said that, or anything even remotely like that. When you have to make up positions for people that you are arguing with, you have pretty weak arguments.
I don’t doubt your experience in this area vastly surpasses mine. But it doesn’t mean that I am just a clueless old white guy who doesn’t have any experience with them.
@Neil Hudelson: 38 people cited for violations in Clinton email probe
@DK:
Got it, sending docs to a personal email address. That clears up my misunderstanding.
@anjin-san:
No you don’t. Otherwise you wouldn’t be trying to blame her messaging when the problem is the morals (or lack thereof) and politics of those who voted for Trump.
Cuz it is about white people. The majority of white voters and a supermajority of white male voters voted for Trump, a manifestly unfit patholgical lying fascist bigot. That was horrible on their part, and there’s no valid excuse. I’m sorry you don’t like hearing that, don’t want to admit that, and don’t want to grapple with the implications of that, but I’m not going stop telling the truth because you don’t like hearing it.
You can say “Let’s talk about black on black crime” all you want. I’ll just counter “Cool, and then let’s talk about white on white crime, and white Adolf Hitler, and all the white mass murderers and white school shooters and white serial killers.”
But you can’t countrer, “Let’s talk about how the majority of black people voted for Trump.” Because we didn’t fall for the anti-Hillary bullshit like most white voters did, so we didn’t.
As a group, the majority of white voters endorsed white supremacy by voting for Trump. A vile action for which there is no excuse. A majority of white voters are responsible for Trunpist fascism getting a foothold in America. That’s the reality. Deal with it.
And I never oversimplified complex arguments or failed to listen as you accused me of doing, so right back atcha. The difference is I understand that you’re calling it like you see it, just like I am. You’re not the only one who gets to have opinions, sir. Stop playing the victim.
The new standard for “acceptable dialog” is the Trump indictment can mention Trump’s “Grab them by the Pussy” statement that has nothing to do with the charges against him. So I can compare Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to Mike Nifong.
@Michael Reynolds:
I remember when you claimed the Cohen arrest meant Trump would be impeached and convicted in a year.
@DK:
Except that’s not what I said. Apparently, rewording & mischaracterizing other people’s comments is a standard part of your M.O. Again, that sort of thing is done by someone presenting weak arguments.
Sprinkle in a few things like “white fragility” & “playing the victim” and then declare yourself to be the truth-teller in the room. Then let people who disagree with you know that they simply can’t handle the truth you are so thoughtfully supplying them with.
Have a nice day, Col. Jessup…
DA Bragg: I am not required to tell the public and court what the other crime was.
Wow, that Hillary intellect that can “run circles around” some posters here, for some reason neglected to visit Wisconsin…..
Also, what was the black turnout compared to Obama’s?
Perhaps if blacks had turned out in the same numbers, we have a President Clinton, so I guess it’s those black voters that stayed home that this white guy can blame for the rise in fascism. This argument is as absurd as you obvious hate of white people.
Come on, scream it and maybe you will have a catharsis…I HATE WHITEY
You obviously have some anger issues…..
DK blaming whites for his anger issues in 5..4..3..2…1
@The Q:
Hillary visited Wisconsin twice in 2016. The silly narrative that is just another example of the lies that gullible, brainwashed, easily-manipulated white men tell about her, to deflect from their role in electing white supremacist fascism.
And of course you’re too stupid to research, you just believe all the anti-Hillary nonsense you hear. Predictable.
But more salient is the fact that weather she visited Wisconsin or not is moot. Wisconsin should not have voted in a pathological lying unfit perverted orange buffoon either way. Black voters didn’t need Hillary to come wear a cheesehead at our house to oppose fascism. The question remains why couldn’t a majority of white voters figure this out on their own?
And your attempt to blame a demographic that voted 90% against Trump for Trump demonstrates that you are a dishonest anti-black racist.
As is your lame attempt to play the ‘angry black man’ card like you bitter bigots always do whenever you fail to bully one of us into silence.
My comment obviously triggered your white fragility…
…you obviously have a stupid liar issue….
Come on, scream it and maybe you will have a catharsis…I HATE DARKIES!
The Q blaming black people for white America’s screwups and spreading racist bile like the dumb, hatemongering tool he is in 4, 3, 2, 1…
Go to hell, scumbag.
@anjin-san:
Grow up, crybaby.
By your own standard, you’re presenting weak arguments, since you repeatedly lied about me and my argument, smeared me, and otherwise mischaracterized me and the things that I’ve said. Repeatedly.
The problem is not that you’re being mischaracterized, the problem is that you think only your opinions are valid. You think you’re the only one who gets to characterize others and their statements, but the moment fire is returned you start crying and whining and playing the victim.
You’re a thin-skinned hypocrite, a privileged phony, and a typical bully who’s too arrogant and self-important to take what you dish.
Again: grow up. And man up. Can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
@Paul L:
He’s not tho, frustrating as it is.
@DK:
Do you really fancy yourself as someone who is bringing the heat? Thank you, its been a long week and I needed a laugh 🙂