The Trump Investigation(s) Thread

[Scoop20906]

Throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks...

Here's the video of Giuliani saying that John Brennan "claims to be a great lover of Islam, of the Islamic religion. He says the hajj was one of the most beautiful things he ever saw. So, how does all this square up?" (via Fox)

I can't imagine how exhausting it must be to live in a constant state of pants-shitting terror that someone brown is going to pop out of the bushes and kill you.

He said gangs because there is nearly 0 Islamic terror in the US.

When racists picture brown violence they often think of gangs. Of course they don't think of all the wonderful things that the VAST majority of brown people represent.

Are you suggesting that if you want to know what it's like dealing with street violence on a daily basis you should go to the local community center and watch a pickup game? Or a diverse suburban HS, or an Urban HS that has good funding and a solid administration?

I don't know Guiliani's youth. Maybe he knows what it's like to be constantly harrased when he goes out. (not that I do, but my wife did) Maybe he knows what having his door kicked in feels like, or having one of his students murdered across the street, or losing young people in his life to prison or awful domestic violence cycles associated with poverty.

You seem to suggest that the acknowledging that racists referring to violent brown people picture gangs because urban minority areas with high poverty often have gang violence is perpetuating stereotypes.

I find that overly pedantic. When I see my student's dead body in my head his killer isn't white. When I picture the violent and disgusting world of meth dealers they look like my aunt(who is REAL WHITE) . When I picture the neighbors who sodded my recently repaired water main ground when we weren't looking, because my wife and I were too broke to do it right they sure aren't white.

I don't know you scoop so I don't want to make assumptions. I know that many of the Mexican and black students and colleagues I've worked with over the years would think this conversation is silly.

I get a sensitivity to reinforcement of bias through vocabulary. I don't think this is it.

I mean other than the Injection of the generalized brown into Guilianis Islamophobia.

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I don’t think this is a silly conversation and I’m glad we are having it even if you aren’t agreeing with me. I’m glad you think the comment doesn’t reinforce a bias. You get that privilege. A lot of people do not. Instead they are targeted daily by the society and the system.

Since you do not know much about me I’ll let you know. I live in a mixed family. I get to see bias and I worry every day about my black stepson who is a great kid but people who think brown=gang are also going to look at him and think gang member. They have hard wired themselves that way.

See that kid at the mall. Looks like a gang banger. Call the cops. That’s the polite US that gets to pass judgement on a skin color daily. That’s why the comment pisses me off regardless of you deciding there was no bias in it.

Does that help you understand my point of view?

It does help, and though not remotely equivalent it annoys me when people give the pity look or an I'm sorry when I tell them the highschool I worked and lived at.

I'm not questioning the bias. Nor am I questioning your right to be annoyed. Is it fair to attribute negative bias to a totally relevant association?

I don't associate my students with gangs, but I do associate gangs with the adjacent neighborhood to mine, and the lives of my students. I don't associate POC with gangs (other than the inherent cultural biases that you're referring to) but I do associate urban gangs with POC.

Also this now has nothing to do with Trump's investigation,..... Maga moving on.

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Considering that our country has been doing it for hundreds of years it is fair but that doesn’t make it right, healthy, or fair. I suspose it is the liberal in me but I’m tired of white people justifying their bias.

[noxiousdog]

Considering that our country has been doing it for hundreds of years it is fair but that doesn’t make it right, healthy, or fair. I suspose it is the liberal in me but I’m tired of white people justifying their bias.

It's almost like it's complicated.

[Pyperkub]

Man, I didn't think I was setting off a shitstorm.

For the record, I'm just saying that if you want to imagine it, that's how you do it. However, I don't think that in general brown (non-white?) people are to be feared based on the color of their skin (though it does happen), and I'd feel just as vulnerable in a meth-head crime ridden white area.

However, I do believe that it is quite easy to be disturbed/scared when in an area where everyone looks different from you (white/brown/black/whatever) and you don't know the people or place and are thus already uncomfortable, and I think that, while unfair, that is an instinctual thing.

I loathe the people who try to make people think that is the norm and live in fear.

does that make sense?

[Daehawk]

Rudy Giuliani's Sunday show appearance was a total disaster

Giuliani says the truth isn't the truth and doesn't want Trump to speak the truth. Hahah those two sad sacks deserve each other. Hope they get the same cell.

GIULIANI: Well, because the meeting was originally for the purpose of getting information about, about Clinton. The meeting turned into a meeting --
CHUCK TODD: Which in itself it's attempted collusion. I understand --
RUDY GIULIANI: No it's not.
CHUCK TODD: You just said it. The meeting was intended to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from a criminal lawyer.
RUDY GIULIANI: No, it wasn't. No, no.
CHUCK TODD: That was the intention of the meeting, you just said it.
RUDY GIULIANI: That was the original intention of the meeting. It turned out to be a meeting about another subject and it was not pursued at all. And, of course, any meeting with regard to getting information on your opponent is something any candidate's staff would take. If someone said, I have information about your opponent, you would take that meeting. If it happens to be a person with a Russian --
CHUCK TODD: From the Russian government?
RUDY GIULIANI: She didn't represent the Russian government, she's a private citizen. I don't even know if they knew she was Russian at the time. All they had was her name.

[Unagi]

I'm guessing there is a Trump fan on the jury - and he is holding out on 'reasonable doubt' , wherein the rest of the jury finds his 'reasonable' to be a joke.

It's not a good sign when the jury asks the judge for more clarity around the idea of 'reasonable doubt'.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... spartanntp

3rd day of deliberations.

With the politics and % of #EverTrump'ers out there, is it possible to create a jury that will not stonewall an obvious guilty verdict with unreasonable 'reasonable doubt' ?

[YellowKing]

You think that's aggravating, wait until Manafort is let off the hook and Trump does an "I told you so" victory lap (or 100) on Twitter claiming this proves a witch hunt. Even though that's not remotely true.

[GreenGoo]

As much as I think Manafort was a scumbag even before he got tied in with drumpf, if I were on the jury and didn't feel they made their case, I'd vote not guilty too.

And I would forever hate the prosecution for making me do it.

[Unagi]

You think that's aggravating, wait until Manafort is let off the hook and Trump does an "I told you so" victory lap (or 100) on Twitter claiming this proves a witch hunt. Even though that's not remotely true.

This is entirely what I am talking about. It's that I see where this is headed....

[Unagi]

As much as I think Manafort was a scumbag even before he got tied in with drumpf, if I were on the jury and didn't feel they made their case, I'd vote not guilty too.

And I would forever hate the prosecution for making me do it.

From what I've read - these cases are very much Not about 'the case the prosecution made' in that classic sense - they are about the financial statements and data (obviously it's up to the prosecution to present them...) - and that the data that was to be presented here was more or less a 'done deal' as they say. He had more in column A then he did in column B.

[GreenGoo]

If the docs weren't convincing enough, I'd vote not guilty and hate the prosecution forever for making me do it.

[msteelers]

If you think the Manafort jury deliberations are taking a long time, they aren't.

This is how long you’d expect them to take, despite the defense’s claims that extended deliberations and the jury’s questions are a good sign.

...

So as we wait, I asked eight lawyers what it might mean that the Manafort jurors are taking so long. Their answer, by and large, was that they aren’t.

“Probably means nothing,” Shira Scheindlin, a former United States district judge in the Southern District of New York, told me. “Most juries are very meticulous. Bank fraud and tax fraud are complex statutes and involve unfamiliar concepts. They are not in the everyday experience of jurors.”

...

These deliberations have not been lengthy by any measure. No one should have expected a quick verdict.

The defense’s claim that the length of the deliberations is a good sign for them is pure spin; indeed, quick verdicts in complex cases are frequently for the defendant.

Jurors feel a high degree of responsibility in any case, and a heightened sense of responsibility in a high-profile case. The Oliver North case (1989) took a jury 12 days to deliberate in a case with 12 counts. The Scooter Libby case (2007) took 10 days of deliberations in a case with five counts. This case has 18 counts, supported largely by scores of documents. The judge prevented the prosecutors from showing some of the evidence to the jury during the trial, which means they are looking at some of it for the first time. They must carefully match the evidence with the counts before they can reach a judgment on any count. That’s what they are doing, and it is not at all surprising that this process will take some time.

TL/DR... the jury taking this long doesn't mean anything.

[LawBeefaroni]

The jury is just waiting for the checks to clear. 3 days for a foreign ACH sounds about right.

[Isgrimnur]

WaPo

The jury in the trial of President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort indicated Tuesday it is split on at least one count — sending a note asking the judge for instructions on how to proceed.

Around 11 a.m. of the panel’s fourth day of deliberations, a note with a question came from the jury foreman, asking how jurors should fill out the verdict form “if we cannot come to a consensus on a single count,” said U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III. The jury also asked what that would mean for the final verdict, Ellis said.

Though the meaning of the note wasn’t entirely clear from its wording, the judge apparently took the panel’s note to mean that they are stuck on a single count, not all of them.

[Blackhawk]

Eh, I'll settle for 17.

[Sepiche]

The fear in the back of my gut has always been a single, hardcore Trumper causing havoc with a jury trial, so if all this drama ends with 17 guilty verdicts... yeah, I'm cool with that.

[hepcat]

My biggest fear if Mannie gets off is that Rip will somehow take that as justification for a cock-walk around this thread.

[Fitzy]

Around 11 a.m. of the panel’s fourth day of deliberations, a note with a question came from the jury foreman, asking how jurors should fill out the verdict form “if we cannot come to a consensus on a single count,” said U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III. The jury also asked what that would mean for the final verdict, Ellis said.

Wow I hope that means there’s one count they are struggling with, but I read it as they can’t come to a consensus on any counts.

I fear an acquittal or hung jury.

[Zaxxon]

Around 11 a.m. of the panel’s fourth day of deliberations, a note with a question came from the jury foreman, asking how jurors should fill out the verdict form “if we cannot come to a consensus on a single count,” said U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III. The jury also asked what that would mean for the final verdict, Ellis said.

Wow I hope that means there’s one count they are struggling with, but I read it as they can’t come to a consensus on any counts.

I fear an acquittal or hung jury.

That's how I read it, as well, but I think the context from other things I've read suggests they are struggling on one count in particular.

[Smoove_B]

Manafort was called back into the courtroom about 15 minutes ago and the court in NY where Cohen is just put up barricades outside the entrance.

[PLW]

Hung would be bad, but I think you run it again.

[Isgrimnur]

The Hill

Long-time Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen has reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors in Manhattan regarding banking and tax fraud allegations, ABC News reported Tuesday.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York’s office is running the probe, but any cooperation could extend to other federal investigations.

Beyond the banking and tax fraud charges, Cohen is being investigated for campaign finance violations for his role in alleged hush-money payments he coordinated with women who claimed to have had sexual encounters with President Trump.
...
Cohen is expected in court at 4 p.m.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

The NYT is reporting that Cohen's plea deal does not involve cooperation.

[Isgrimnur]

WaPo

It’s not clear if such a deal would include Cohen’s cooperation in the ongoing special-counsel investigation surrounding Trump.

[LawBeefaroni]

Around 11 a.m. of the panel’s fourth day of deliberations, a note with a question came from the jury foreman, asking how jurors should fill out the verdict form “if we cannot come to a consensus on a single count,” said U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III. The jury also asked what that would mean for the final verdict, Ellis said.

Wow I hope that means there’s one count they are struggling with, but I read it as they can’t come to a consensus on any counts.

I fear an acquittal or hung jury.

That's how I read it, as well, but I think the context from other things I've read suggests they are struggling on one count in particular.

It was just one count.

TV on at the gym said that the judges instructions to "get back in there and DELIBERATE" may help the defense in terms of an appeal in the event he's found guilty on that one count. No idea if that's correct.

[Isgrimnur]

Spoiler:

Manafort jury has reached verdict on 8 counts, can't reach consensus on 10 counts

[GreenGoo]

Was there ever any doubt that they'd reach a verdict at some point?

Wtf are the verdicts?!

[stessier]

My guess - 8 counts acquitted, 10 counts hung.

[coopasonic]

My guess - 8 counts acquitted, 10 counts hung.

We've seen your confidence in the Patriots too, Mr. Pessimist.

[Isgrimnur]

CNN

BREAKING: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been found guilty on at least one count.

Judge T.S. Ellis has declared a mistrial on 10 counts in the case.

[Skinypupy]

CNN

BREAKING: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been found guilty on at least one count.

Judge T.S. Ellis has declared a mistrial on 10 counts in the case.

I know I should know this, but what happens now on the other 10 counts?

Are they dismissed? Retried? Thrown down the memory hole?

[Holman]

TPM says guilty on 8, mistrial on 10.

[stessier]

My guess - 8 counts acquitted, 10 counts hung.

We've seen your confidence in the Patriots too, Mr. Pessimist.

I stick with what gets me through the day.

[Isgrimnur]

BREAKING: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been found guilty on eight counts.

[ImLawBoy]

CNN

BREAKING: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been found guilty on at least one count.

Judge T.S. Ellis has declared a mistrial on 10 counts in the case.

I know I should know this, but what happens now on the other 10 counts?

Are they dismissed? Retried? Thrown down the memory hole?

I believe if it's a mistrial the prosecution has the option to go again, but they may choose not to.

[stessier]

CNN

BREAKING: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been found guilty on at least one count.

Judge T.S. Ellis has declared a mistrial on 10 counts in the case.

I know I should know this, but what happens now on the other 10 counts?

Are they dismissed? Retried? Thrown down the memory hole?

It's a mistrial so they can retry him or choose not to prosecute - it's up to the prosecutor.

[ImLawBoy]

Is this where I say BAM!?

[Isgrimnur]

Is this where I say BAM!?

It is the preferred methodology.

[Zaxxon]

Is this where I say BAM!?

This is where you give us the Mr. Fed-style course on Federal sentencing guidelines so we can make sense of what 8 guilty counts means. The full 18 counts had a max of something like 305 years, which Fed tells me bears no relation to what he'd actually get.

So, what's he actually gonna get, and will that press him to cooperate?

[Isgrimnur]

[Holman]

So no acquittals whatsoever. Manafort is guilty on eight serious felony counts with mistrial on ten others.

He also has another trial coming up next month, this one focused on his work for Russia and in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Cohen has pled guilty and has cut a deal on charges that point to the president. He says he acted at the direction of the candidate to influence the election.

Almost incidentally, libel charges by Russians against Christopher Steele were today dismissed.

And Trump has a rally tonight in West Virginia...