Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You're using a lot of words to avoid answering a pretty simple question. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Bragg's prosecution of Trump was "political", whatever you mean by that, it's also clear now that Trump did the things that he was accused of, failed to convince the courts that they weren't a crime, and was convicted by a jury. You have conceded that all of the latter was fair. So this is *not* a case where Bragg wasted public resources chasing something that wasn't a crime. He spent public resources prosecuting, successfully, something that *was* a crime. What is the Pennsylvania ethics rule that says that a prosecutor should not prosecute an actual crime, one on which he can legitimately convict, because something was "political"? (I'm asking about Pennsylvania rules because I assume you're most familiar with them, but any state will do.)

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

He obviously guilty in all the cases. And a bunch of cases that have never been brought.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

No, I'm using a reasonable number to defy your reframing of the issue.

We have all committed numerous crimes in our lives. Humans cannot help but do this, as criminal codes are voluminous and filled with words, and words can be stretched to make all sorts of things into crimes. However, prosecutors do not attempt to prosecute all crimes, particularly novel ones more than 7 years old.

These misdemeanors would not (could not) have been brought except as turned into felonies through what even most anti-Trumpers admit was a stretching of the law.

It is not a defense to prosecutorial abuse/overreach to say, "But I got a conviction!" No shit you got a conviction. Selective prosecution was not allowed as a defense. If it were, Bragg would not have gotten past a motion to dismiss.

Fairly administered. Merchand and the jury were left with a technically colorable claim that should not have been brought and would not have been brought but for Bragg's political opportunism and lack of ethics, and corruption, and they heard the evidence as limited as it was. Merchand and the jury were the instruments abused in the process as much as Trump was a wrongly abused political target in the process.

Sure he did. How many other cases were his office's resources diverted from to press this naked political hitjob which will provide no benefit to the citizens of NY. How many tax dollars were wasted to tag a 78 year old man with a felony for bookkeeping irregularities while violent crimes in the city went unpunished and unaddressed. Bragg stole that money from the city.

I already told you. The model ethics rules of not only PA but every state that adopts them include a provision against engaging in criminal acts or official corruption. Bragg engaged in time theft for his own benefit. He also violated his oath to fairly administer his office by treating Trump differently than others.

That one can convict - and my statement that Merchand and the jury were fair in administering the trial under the rules and statutes before them is not a concession that it was legitimate (a legitimate trial would have allowed a selective prosecution defense) - does not mean one should prosecute.

A DA can find any political opponent he wants to convict and charge him with some crime if that DA chooses to look hard enough. But DAs (other than Bragg) don't do that. Why? Because it's wrong. It's unethical. It's sleazy. And while the model ethics rules do address such corrupt acts (and the criminal code might as well), no sane person needs to refer to any of those rules to understand that Bragg engaged in a banana republic prosecution.

And your Trump hatred is causing you to defend it. Which is... weird.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Ahh, the favorite apology of corrupt police. "Nevermind this conviction was bad... the convict surely did something else bad."

And it needn't even be used here. There are two cases (one currently dismissed pending appeal) which are properly and fairly brought against Trump. Jack Smith, unlike Bragg, has not acted unethically, or improperly. He is not stretching an ancient misdemeanor using a bizarre theory, and he is not prosecuting these cases for private political gain. He only stands to suffer massive annoyance and attacks for pushing these cases. But he is moving them forward in accordance with a reasonable reading of the law, within the proper statutes of limitations, and to discharge the duties of his office.

Smith is a bit of a zealot for me, but he is honorable in what he is doing. He is an example of proper prosecutorial discretion, juxtaposed against Bragg who is, and I use the term because it fits, a political whore - in not many regards all that different from Guiliani.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

(1) Not a novel crime, but a crime that is routinely prosecuted in New York.
(2) The long delay was sought by Trump, in part because he was POTUS for much of that time.
(3) Agree that prosecutors do not try to prosecute all crimes, but what you're missing is that most prosecutors prosecute crimes on which they can convict, and not when they can't. The conviction -- and Trump's utter lack of a defense -- shows the prosection was a reasonable of state resources.

The NYC prosecutor I know says you don't know what you're talking about.

If you're right, that's why we have appellate courts.

You still haven't explained why this was prosecutorial abuse or overreach. What's the Pennsylvania law that says so?

These two sentences were written by someone who went to law school?

If the trial judge made mistakes of law about the defenses that Trump was entitled to present, that's what appellate courts are for. It doesn't mean the DA was unethical.

Exactly. You agree there was nothing unfair about the trial process, you just think, for reasons you are unable to articulate, that the claims should not have been brought at all. Presented with the evidence that Trump committed a felony, he should have let him walk. ("Orange privilege?")

White-collar crimes are crimes too, and there is a clear benefit to the citizens of New York when felons are convicted. It punishes the felons, and it deters other people from committing felonies.

If that's the best you got, that's the best you got. At least you tried.

Of course, that's not what Bragg did, because Trump actually did something that was a felony under New York law.

I think it's remarkable that Trump can break that law so often and that so many people, like you, will line up to make excuses for him. Narcissists like Trump are not the problem -- it's his supporters and enablers.

What is weird, except that it's not, is the total dissonance between everything you say about Trump and everything you have ever posted here about Hunter Biden. I have been pretty consistent in my views about those prosecutions, and you ... have not.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I’ll address the rest elsewhere, but I must correct the suggestion I am fine with the prosecution of Hunter Biden.

That case is exactly the same as Trump’s. He’d never have been prosecuted for either of the crimes (tax or gun) but for his last name. The prosecution was despicable on the part of the prosecutors and those in the Biden administration who allowed it for political cover.

I fully expect Joe to pardon him, as he should. And hopefully apologize to him for bowing to opportunistic Republicans who convinced him and his handlers they had to serve Hunter to the wolves to support the argument the Trump cases weren’t political.

Now tell me (as one who’s defended criminal tax and gun cases, albeit long ago) why the Hunter case is justifiable.

ETA: I suspect you’re conflating my position that the laptop was real (it is) and the media’s and internet platforms’ squashing it (with the help of corrupt intelligence officers organized to write a letter by Blinken) indefensible with a belief Hunter’s tax and gun cases were valid.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Like Trump, if he did crimes, he did crimes.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

So all of the people I know of who’ve been threatened with indictment if they didn’t pay the tax evaded plus stiff penalties (and yes - that’s exactly the quid pro quo offered by the govt… usually they give you 60-90 days to pony up the money) should’ve been prosecuted?

And I guess those prosecutors who offered those deals acted unethically?

You’ve a strange level of comfort with the capriciousness of the system.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

So, two things, which you keep running together.

First, if someone does crimes, they did crimes, and they should get the consequences. That includes Trump and Biden. Trump committed felonies and he was convicted. The fact that he has a political following doesn't change that.

(If something isn't a crime, and prosecutors entrap someone or suborn perjury, etc., that's different. If Trump should have been able to present a defense and wasn't permitted to, or if the prosecution relied on a novel legal theory that went too far, an appellate court can fix that. That's not prosecutorial conduct, just how the law works. People who don't pay their taxes aren't usually threatened with criminal prosecution but with civil enforcement. That's fine, unless there is something bad faith or abusive about the threats, but you seem to think the threat of prosecution itself is abusive when applied to non-violent crimes.)

Second, every day, prosecutors have to decide which cases to pursue. As you know, I did this for several years. You seem to think with the right kind of defendant -- wealthy, accused of non-violent crime -- that these decisions are presumptively suspect, that the financial crimes unit should go and prosecute violent crimes instead. I tend to think that these decisions are highly fact-intensive and very difficult to second guess unless you are in the room. I also tend to think the prosecutors don't like to waste their time, and don't want to work on cases they won't win, which acts as a check on bringing bad cases. This also may be a bad thing in some instances where prosecutors arguably should be more aggressive to serve the public good, like rape cases and antitrust mergers.

If you want to have a conversation about how prosecutorial discretion is exercised, great. But that discussion does not change the fact that Trump did crimes and was convicted of those crimes in a scrutinized and fair process in which he really failed to offer any kind of meaningful defense. That result, IMO, vindicates the DA from the silly attacks that you are making, because the proof was in the pudding.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Jaywalking is a crime. If a NYC cop randomly pulls someone off the street for jaywalking while watching dozens of others do it at the same time, is this excusable under the notion, "Do the crime, do the time"?

I could walk into the Sphere on any given night and arrest loads of people for illegal drugs. Perhaps even finding acid or mushrooms, which are still subject to draconian penalties. Is this ok just because, oh well, it's a crime.

Would it be sane to send me to federal prison for transporting psilocybin over state lines when traveling back and for from a beach vacation? Am I a danger to society?

The IRS explicitly - as policy - refrains from doing aggressive audits on bars and restaurants because it recognizes that there's the law, and then there's what everybody in the industry does.

We live in a giant grey zone where people commit felonies all the time, intentionally and unintentionally, and law enforcement looks the other way. Indeed it must, or everyone would have a criminal record.

Abuse occurs when a prosecutor decides to cherry pick certain people for prosecution. And it isn't merely white collar criminals. The "tough on crime" brigade of idiot voters have for decades now convinced unethical prosecutors to aggressively go after criminals in reckless manners, and seek extreme penalties. Barry Scheck has freed how many people wrongly on death row at the this point? And how many dozens of the cases of prosecutorial cheating, (hiding exculpatory evidence, etc.) were included ih that data set? A lot.

Trump himself sought, disgustingly, to have the prosecutors seek the death penalty against the Central Park Five who were later determined to be innocent.

This is a long way of saying that where a prosecution is pursued for political means, and that is irrefutable in the case Bragg brought but Cyrus Vance would not, it is abusive. It is rotten, and it properly telecasts to all that something is rotten in the system. And it is.

You can try to argue that Biden's and Trump's cases are defensible because they resulted in convictions, but you're on an island there. People can sense what's rotten, what's corrupt, and even people who think Trump deserves every bad break he gets (like yours truly) can recognize banana republic behavior when they see it.

Final point, and perhaps most important. The public should be skeptical of our justice system. It should disregard convictions and acquittals in biased forums. It should assume that findings by courts are wrong as often as right, and the system is overburdened and stupidly based on an ancient anglo saxon principle that letting adversaries fight things out somehow leads to truth. Because that's bullshit. And everybody who works in the system knows it. Cases are decided based on bias of forum, bias of jurists, bias of juries, sloppiness of the statutes under which they're brought (present in Trump's NY case and Biden's gun case), and lastly, facts. There are so many elements of luck and chicanery in the systems that anyone having significant faith in it is credulous. ...Or perhaps as those of us who've done enough of it tell any client who claims he wants justice, "Well, then stay the fuck out of the courthouse."

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You are -- intentionally -- blurring civil actions, misdemeanors and felonies, and the discretionary decisions made by cops and prosecutors.

If there is a reason to think that a police officer is singling someone out for differential treatment, I have a problem with that. Who doesn't?

No. It depends on the reasons. As a former prosecutor, I can tell you that you have to make decisions about which cases to bring and which not to bring. Using the word "cherry pick" is a loaded term that you're using rhetorically, without explaining your argument. It matters *why* the prosecutors are picking the cases.

Some prosecutors use their resources to overcharge people who then are forced to plea, because who has the money for lawyers. That can feel abusive, especially if they are chasing charges that they're likely not going to win.

Do you see why that paragraph doesn't apply to Trump?

I understand all of your feelings on this subject, which I have heard before, but none of it means Trump didn't get what he deserved. Some people commit crimes, and need to be prosecuted, and the trial showed that he was one of them.

Please explain why you think the fact that Bragg brought a case that Vance would not shows anything, let alone irrefutably. Because you just keep referring to some undescribed set of circumstances that you think somehow taints Bragg's decision, and I don't get it. Suppose that Vance thought that (a) Trump committed crimes, but (b) it would be bad for the country to prosecute a former President, and suppose that Bragg agreed with (a) and disagreed with (b). That different of views in how a DA should do their jobs in no way tarnishes the prosecution.

Saying this doesn't make it true. But go ahead, say it again.

You've already said that Trump got a fair trial, so all this handwaving about skepticism is nonsense. The trial was public. Lots of people watched. You agreed it was fair.

Your skepticism is about Bragg's decision making, not the trial, but Bragg's decision making does not change what Trump did.

As re your last quote, consider the start of Gaddis's A Frolic Of His Own:

"Justice? You'll get justice in the next world. In this world, you have the law."

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

What did Trump “get?” He tried to overthrow the country and is running for president. Do you think he’ll go to jail for that? If I were arguing Sebby’s point it would center on the fact that there is no punishment coming so why do the trial?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

We were talking specifically about the trial in New York state court. The Supreme Court has protected Trump with a ridiculous ruling creating an immunity for him, and delayed things so that there won't be a trial before the election. If Trump wins the election, he will fire the lawyers and end the cases against him. If he loses, that's another story.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

That's immaterial. Selective treatment is selective treatment regardless of grade or character of enforcement.

But not with a prosecutor?

We needn't examine that in much detail. Bragg brought this case for political reasons, and no amount of dissembling gets around that fact.

Right. That's why I didn't say any of that and it's use here is either a strawman or a red herring.

Exactly the justification cops have used on minorities for decades. "Well, he was guilty of something."

The prosecution was such a stretch Bragg was unable to locate a state level predicate act and had to use a novel theory involving an alleged violation of federal campaign law (similar to one which Smith used against John Edwards and the jury rejected, btw) to create a felony. Knowing the full time it was likely whatever conviction he got would betaken apart on appeal. But who cares about that? The aim was always a conviction before the election.

He got a fair trial in a completely unfair forum. The law is poorly written and so was perversely exploited in Rube Goldberg fashion by Bragg, and Trump was tried in a city where voters liked Bragg's and Laetitia James' campaign promises to "get Trump." You don't see how this is a loaded deck?

Administering the trial fairly in such circumstance is akin to fairly administering a lethal injection where a witness has recanted. "Hey, it was fairly administered."

Huh? What Trump didn't was not even of consequence enough to for the FEC to levy a fine! Bragg's decision converted what would never have been a crime (indeed as a misdemeanor its statute of lims had passed) into a crime. If you have to be as creative as Bragg was in this case, it's a case you have no ethical basis to bring.

Right, well, at least we're in agreement on that. We only differ in that you seem to be bent a bit - willing to defend that which is more than a bit sleazy and obviously political. Why I've no idea. Contra that, I am of the position, which I think is eminently clear, that selective criminal prosecution is always despicable. To wit:

Bragg Case: Despicable
Hunter Biden Cases: Despicable
Trump Docs Case in FL: Absolutely valid, and indeed the man is guilty from what I've seen. The dismissal was despicable.
Trump Jan 6 Case: Absolutely valid.

We cannot have people like James and Bragg running for DA or State Atty Gen on a platform of "I'm going to get our political opponents!" That is banana republic behavior.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Yes, with a prosecutor, I just think it's pretty uncommon.

That's not a fact. It's an opinion that you keep repeating, with basing the facts which led you to it. What facts are those? I would like to know, in part because I can't figure out what you mean by "political."

Great. So we agree that there is a form of prosecutorial abuse which you don't think was involved in Bragg's prosecution of Trump. I'm still trying to figure what you did think was abusive about it.

No, that's not the same at all. Trump was found guilty on the exact charges for which he was indicted. Not, "he was guilty of something." Rather, he was guilty of the exact thing he was charged with, and he had no defense.

Given that the charges had to do with funneling hush-money payments around a federal election, why is it any surprise that the predicate act would involve federal campaign law?

You seem to think it was unethical for Bragg to advance a legal theory you disagree with, as if there weren't courts involved making legal rulings.

None of that makes it an unfair forum.

And quote to me what you think Bragg actually said. Find me where he said "get Trump." I think he didn't, and you are out over your skis with those quotation marks.

This is such horseshit. I'm sorry, but you can do much better.

The FEC routinely fails to enforce law, for reasons that are no secret.

Again, one difference here is that I have been told by NY prosecutors that Bragg's legal theory was not creative or unprecedented, and your views are shaped by, well, other stuff.

Because I have not seen actually factual basis for the suggestion that Bragg was "sleazy" or "political," and certainly not from you.

Facts, please. What did Bragg say?