• RojoSanIchiban@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Assuming this clears hearsay judgement (and it should, relating to his mental state at the time), it’s a MOAB.

    Trump’s defense in has been an insistence that he believes he actually won, and not obstructing congress to overturn the election, but to uphold it.

    In the Federal D.C. case in particular, he’s the only indicted defendant, so his only avenue to really argue his belief that he won, he’s going to have to take the stand. And that means cross examination. And that’s almost guaranteed to result in perjury.

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Assuming this clears hearsay judgement (and it should, relating to his mental state at the time)

      Can you dig into this a bit further? This is what I’ve been considering (especially around the CO trial), is that like, while from an outsiders ley perspective, he clearly had the intent to overthrow the elected government of the United States, the standards of evidence in cases like this are high (and should be).

      He’s been very cautious throughout his life to engage that mafioso style of speaking (wouldn’t it be great if… xyz… happened). He doesn’t strike me as a fastidious note taker. At the same time, for things like the fake electors scheme, there is only so much you can minimize the communication by. Like it clearly happened; they had them prepared. There is (or at one point was) written documentation of some of these crimes. How far can something like this actually take things?

      • RojoSanIchiban@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Prefacing with “I am not a lawyer,” I’m only related to a two lawyers, two police officers, and have too many extended family friends who are both, I worked a short time in a court, and now watch/listen to too many lawyers talking on podcasts… so I’m likely the worst of the worst kind of armchair lawyer wannabe.

        Hearsay is generally inadmissible as evidence used against the accused having allegedly committed a crime, because it’s second-hand information and the person effectively making the evidentiary statement isn’t the one currently testifying under oath.

        I can’t simply testify that you told me that you watched Trump commit a crime, when you aren’t there to provide witness testimony.

        But exceptions do apply, and in this case it would be when it comes to establishing a general intent or motive, a mental/emotional state of the accused.

        I can testify that you told me Trump was angry about the election. I think there could be arguments that this testimony should be inadmissible if there is no chance for you to testify to the same, unless you were available for rebuttal or possibly involved in the crime itself, where you would feasibly be protected by the 5th amendment.

        So it wouldn’t be slam dunk “Scavino told me that Trump said we are going to illegally overthrow the election” is totally inadmissible as evidence of the crime. But the testimony from Ellis of what Scavino told her, that “we” don’t care what the election outcome is, that “we” aren’t leaving, at the very least implies that “we” have an intention to defy the outcome if it isn’t in our favor. Meaning the “we” certainly aren’t staying in power purely because “we” we think we won, and have good faith reasons to believe “we” should remain.

        The telegraphed defense so far for Trump has been that he believes he actually won, and this testimony is a direct rebuke of that idea. This will naturally require more corroborating testimony presented to a jury to reach “beyond a reasonable doubt” on his intent to ignore the election and stay in power, but it proves such testimony already exists.

        • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          The telegraphed defense so far for Trump has been that he believes he actually won, and this testimony is a direct rebuke of that idea. This will naturally require more corroborating testimony presented to a jury to reach “beyond a reasonable doubt” on his intent to ignore the election and stay in power, but it proves such testimony already exists.

          I guess that’s where my concerns lay. Without physical evidence, I don’t know how you get to “beyond a reasonable doubt”. I don’t know, without like, actual physical records of some kind, you prove that. And yes, they stole bankers boxes of documents, and for all we know, destroyed the evidence. At the same time, these conspiracies were far reaching, and in a digital age, being confident that you’ve completely destroyed all records of a communication could be very difficult. The inference of intent from hearsay, even qualified hearsay, seems like not a great strategy.

          • RojoSanIchiban@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            You do that by having enough people that were nearby, or better, involved in the overall conspiracy testifying that they were operating with the knowledge that what they were doing was illegal.

            “Beyond a reasonable doubt” is not “beyond the shadow of any doubt.”

            If you have three or four insiders saying that Trump wanted to do X (which was an illegal act), and corroborating testimony that he was told by these lawyers, like Ellis, that the law doesn’t work that way, that this is illegal, it’s not reasonable that Trump can righteously still believe he was not committing a crime. By that point it’s “ignorance of the law” at best, which is not a defense.

            Testimonies will be catered to pointing this out, and there will be plenty of arguments about the intent of text messages and emails and conversations surrounding Trump, they will ultimately establish everyone was aware that this illegal obstruction is being done knowingly and at Trump’s direction. Once you’re there, it requires an absolutely unreasonable juror to conclude he had any reason to believe be was in the right.

            • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              it’s not reasonable that Trump can righteously still believe he was not committing a crime

              I suppose that puts weight on the fact that its his lawyers have flipped.

  • Melkath@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    … but he did.

    And he is in active litigation to face the consequences…

    This massive push to make Trump the big bad wolf as scary as possible to scare people into voting for Biden when they fundamentally disagree with his actions is really getting ridiculous.

    Cheeto and his buffoon squad are not competent enough to be nearly as dangerous as the media is trying to scare us into believing.

    Their “coup” was just walking into the capitol, literally smearing shit on the walls, and then getting locked up in prison for doing it. Really makes me believe they can end America.

    Don’t get me wrong, it will be a shitty 4 years, but Biden has done this to us, and life will go on.

    • be_excellent_to_each_other@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      Here’s an organization that studies and categorizes Coup d’État against a specific set of criteria.

      Here is their statement about Jan 06.

      That statement provides links to their methodology and dataset, as well as other details.

      Here is an excerpt:

      The Cline Center’s Coup d’État Project is the world’s largest global registry of failed and successful coups. The Cline Center defines a coup as an “organized effort to effect sudden and irregular (e.g., illegal or extra-legal) removal of the incumbent executive authority of a national government, or to displace the authority of the highest levels of one or more branches of government.” To be categorized as a coup, an event must meet the following criteria (which are detailed at greater length in the Coup d’État Project codebook):

      -There must be some person or persons who initiated the coup.

      -The target of the coup must have meaningful control over national policy.
      -There must be a credible threat to the leaders’ hold on power.
      -Illegal or irregular means must be used to seize, remove, or render powerless the target of the coup.
      -It must be an organized effort.

      Summary

      Using the Cline Center’s Coup d’État Project definitions, the storming of the US Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 was an attempted coup d’état: an organized, illegal attempt to intervene in the presidential transition by displacing the power of the Congress to certify the election. In terms of the type of coup attempt, the complex nature of this event leads it to be categorized as both an attempted auto-coup and as an attempted dissident coup, reflecting the separate activities of distinctive actors involved in the event.

      • Melkath@kbin.social
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        8 months ago

        I’m not saying a group of bumpkins didn’t storm the Capitol.

        I am not saying that is acceptable.

        I am saying that life went on (for everyone except that one woman), justice was served, and Trump doesn’t scare me enough to vote for a genocidal maniac.

          • Melkath@kbin.social
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            8 months ago

            Not that I recall.

            One sad woman got 1 tapped and they scattered like cockroaches.

            Link it if I’m wrong.

            • gothic_lemons@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Nah why don’t you do your own research. I got better things to do than do research for some lazy troll arguing in bad faith. Please do LSD or mushrooms to gain empathy and become a real human being who cares about others.

              • Melkath@kbin.social
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                8 months ago

                So my recollection is correct.

                And also, the irony of someone telling me to get empathy to convince me into supporting a genocide like them. Height of irony.

                • griefreeze@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  Your recollection is incorrect, one officer died the following night as a result of his injuries. Two others also killed themselves within a week of it.

                  Also where the fuck is anyone discussing genocide here? Nevermind, I see you’re using Biden’s position on Israel/Palestine as a shitty rhetorical deflection.

    • Furbag@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      This is your reaction to “Man almost overthrows centuries of peaceful transition of power, stopped only by a few individuals who refused to cooperate”? That he’s not actually dangerous at all?

      You are the reason they put warning labels on everything now.

      • Melkath@kbin.social
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        8 months ago

        Have you heard of the Civil War?

        Brother. We ain’t even close to that place.

        Americans are too fat and scared.

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    How does this rank on your big-deal-o-meter? This seems like it could speak to specific intent and may have bearing on the CO case.