I’ve Seen Enough: Donald Trump Will Be Indicted
He’s literally trapped. If he runs, he’s screwed. If he doesn’t run, he’s screwed. There’s no way out.
by Bob Cesca
WASHINGTON, DC – Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen theorizes that the reason Trump absconded away with what’s now reported to be 700 highly classified documents is because he planned to blackmail the U.S. government if they decided to prosecute him for one of his various crimes.
It’s not the first time we’ve heard about a so-called “dead man’s switch.” Back in 2013, Edward Snowden reportedly had stashed a tranche of NSA documents that were potentially damaging to national security so that if he were arrested, the documents would get dumped into public view. It was a last ditch insurance policy, one which Trump could also have been planning.
Speaking of NSA, we learned this week that Trump not only made off with TS/SCI documents, some of the most classified documents held by the government, but also Special Access Program files, which are the most secretive of all. I joked this week that Trump saw the acronym “SAP” and assumed they were Save America PAC documents. [Rimshot.] We also learned from The New York Times that Trump stole both CIA files and NSA documents.
Read the latest for Banter Members:
The Alt Left Is A Disgrace - Why Tulsi Gabbard is doing her best to re-elect Trump, assist Vladimir Putin, and dismantle the international order.
You might remember the name Reality Winner. Like Snowden, she worked for an NSA contractor and, in 2017, leaked a document indicating that the Russians had used a phishing scam to hack into voter registration systems. By the way, it was yet another Trump-Russia story that got buried, partly due to Trump’s and Bill Barr’s scheme to de-fang the Mueller Report. Regardless, Winner stole one document. One. For her efforts, she was sentenced to five years in prison.
Trump, on the other hand, stole 700 documents, including the aforementioned SAP files, and kept them in an unsecured basement storage space at his publicly accessible country club. The FBI has video surveillance of people moving the boxes in and out of storage and, in some cases, moving files from box to box. At one point, Trump himself sorted through the materials. Another box was found in a closet in Trump’s office, according to The New York Times. We have no idea – for now – how many Mar-a-lago visitors and employees have seen the documents, but I assume we’ll eventually find out.
My maxim from day one has been: Trump always makes things worse for Trump. Accordingly, we also learned this week that Trump may have participated in a conspiracy to lie to the FBI about the documents. His back-of-the-phonebook attorney, Christian Bobb, reportedly signed an FBI report indicating that to the best of her knowledge they had turned over all of the classified materials to the Bureau. This was in June. And they hadn’t. It’s potentially an all-new crime added onto the growing list.
And as election watchers like to say on Twitter: “I’ve seen enough…” Trump will absolutely be indicted for one or more crimes. I say this with almost complete certainty.
The growing roster of potential charges from the document theft crimes alone are about to crash down on Trump’s pumpkin head. It might not be tomorrow or next week – in fact, the grand jury is more likely to hand down indictments on this front – after the midterms are over to avoid the appearance of skewing the election.
We’ll probably see obstruction of justice charges, plus violations of the Espionage Act, as well as related charges including, yes, lying to the FBI. Making matters worse for Trump is the reality that if he decides to run for president to, in his worm-infested brain, avoid prosecution, he’ll lose access to Save America PAC and the RNC’s help with his legal fees. He’s literally trapped. If he runs, he’s screwed. If he doesn’t run, he’s screwed. There’s no way out. The only thing that could rescue him is the grand jury, or a pardon should a Republican win the presidency in 2024 (although that’s not a guarantee – Trump could be so radioactive he’ll be unpardonable by that time).
On top of all that, there’s a second grand jury investigating Trump and the White House’s participation in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. There’s a significant chance Trump will be indicted by the special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia. The Trump Organization goes on trial in October in Manhattan. There’s the civil case by New York attorney general Letitia James, and a variety of other personal lawsuits. One thing’s almost entirely certain: the Trump Organization might cease to exist in 2023.
As our friend Mary Trump said earlier this month: there’s no one left to bail him out of this mess. Trump stumbled, like the town drunk, into his own propeller. His family can’t help him. His money can’t help him. The presidency can’t help him. There’s a small chance a future president could help him but that’s a big question mark. Trump is staring over the ledge at the abyss and the net below might be too small for the girth of his crimes.
Read an excerpt from the latest for Banter Members:
The Alt Left Is A Disgrace
Tulsi Gabbard is doing her best to re-elect Trump, assist Vladimir Putin, and dismantle the international order.
by Ben Cohen
I have argued for some time now that America is currently engaged in a new civil war. The dynamics of this conflict are unlike the previous war in 1861, and they reflect the complexity of modern American society.
But the underlying principles of the conflict is quite simple: on one side, there is a religiously inspired, heavily armed, fascistic movement in America threatening to overthrow democracy. On the other side is a disorganized but ideologically diverse network of Americans committed to stopping this fascist movement from taking over.
Just as there were no moral equivalents between the United States and the Confederacy in America’s original civil war over 160 years ago, there are no moral equivalents today. Both sides do not want to elect a demagogue committed to ending democracy. Both sides are not inspired by extremist Christian Nationalism. Both sides are not explicitly racist. Both sides do not want to wreck our living environment for profit. Both sides do not want to end reproductive rights for women. Both sides do not live in an alternate reality where facts are whatever their leader says they are.
This war is about fascism versus democracy, about religious extremism versus religious freedom, and fantasy versus reality.
If you do not oppose this fascist movement, or you believe that “both sides” really are just the same, you are part of the problem. Not necessarily the enemy, but an unwitting ally to the enemy, and a collaborator. You might not be on the front lines working feverishly to end democracy, but just as the Vichy French government claimed to be “independent” during World War II, Marshal Philippe Pétain’s party was anything but.
The MAGA collaborators
Even after Donald Trump’s assault on democracy in January of 2021, there are MAGA allies across the political spectrum. The GOP establishment has caved to Trump’s every demand, even refusing to impeach him for inciting a violent coup. What remained of the center right has either left the party or is to weak to stand up to him. All are helping to legitimize the MAGA movement.
On the left, Trump has a surprising number of allies — some unwitting, some fully aware of who and what they are appeasing.
The Bernie Sanders left has, for the most part, sided with the center of the party and worked to help defeat Trump. But there are many ideologues — the Susan Sarandons of the hard left — who refuse to join this war, instead holding out for a pure form of socialism they believe is inevitable.
Most prominent though are the characters in the Alt Left;..
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The champagne is already chilled
"...he’s screwed. There’s no way out."
And I've also got a dozen chickens still in the shell.
I agree it looks like Trump might actually finally face a real consequence for his crimes (and "Trump always makes things worse for Trump" will finally have an example where that' been the case). But until it actually happens, I won't under estimate the corruption of Republicans who would eagerly pardon him or the weakness of Democrats who often cave when they fear someone will say something mean about them.