ANYONE WANT TO PREDICT....
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@justanotherfan The smartest thing the Trump Republicans could do is lose control of both houses of Congress. Then, even if his vetoes are the reason no legislation gets enacted, the Donald can spend 2 full years excoriating a second “Do Nothing Congress” a la Truman, and the Dems thereupon waste their advantage through fratricide and their traditional strategic suicide. Trump wins in 2020. Putin, too, of course.
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No pardon for either.
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@mayjay Can you tell us what the options are here? If Cohen has already agreed to a plea, can he still be pardoned? Does being pardoned change anything about the testimony involved in the plea? Conversely, Manafort has until December’s sentencing to agree to a plea? Also, what do you expect the special counsel is currently offering, and is there a window to their offers?
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How long until they go after Trump’s tax returns?
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@approxinfinity good questions
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@approxinfinity I believe it’s councel. Lol
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@Crimsonorblue22 I believe its Craig Counsell?
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@approxinfinity There is actually another Manafort trial coming up, in which the prosecutors are believed to have much more evidence. If there is a plea, he would only do it if it resolved that trial, these guilty verdicts, and the 10 charges that are unresolved in this trial.
Cohen will have made statements in support of the plea, but it is not testimony. Now that he has pled guilty, though, the prosecutors can compel his testimony under oath either in the grand jury or in a trial of someone else. What he says could surprise either side, but his plea wasn’t dependent on cooperating. He can no longer plead the 5th.
A pardon for either could be done at any time. But a pardon actually has to be accepted, and accepting it legally is considered an admission of guilt. I would not be surprised if Cohen, despite the current breach with Trump, gets pardoned and then–surprise!–recants his claim that they worked together on the payoffs.
Trump has said he could pardon himself. The legal support for that proposition is, to be sure, uncertain at best. And, since it would be considered to be effectively an actual admission of guilt, he obviously wouldn’t do it. Has he ever confessed to anything?
A commutation, incidentally, has no effect on a conviction. A druggie whose sentence was commuted by Obama, I think it was, turned it down because he felt the conditions (rehab, etc) would be more difficult and keep him under John Law’s thumb longer than serving out his sentence.
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@mayjay It seems that if pardoning Cohen is an admission of guilt, then Trump would not pardon him because that implicates Trump as well… ?
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@approxinfinity Correction: The first accounts I read said that the Cohen statements were unsworn. But Cohen’s lawyer said Cohen made his statements under oath. That would subject him to perjury charges if he were to testify differently.
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They’ll get pardoned before they ever serve any real time. Teflon Don doesn’t care about the optics.
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@approxinfinity In addition, I read an analysis that pointed out that if Manafort and Cohen were pardoned by Trump, they would likely be called into state courts for tax evasion charges at least. Nothing Trump can do to affect those charges, and they likely would be brought in New York, Maryland, and Virginia (and possibly others where property is located or unreported income earned). The last one is contested, but NY and MD are heavily “Blue States” so no governor there would do state pardons to protect Trump. So, with those remaining over their heads they will continue to have every incentive to cooperate.
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@mayjay I’m sure that their Lawyers would make appearances for those cases, but I doubt that either would be in a Country that currently observes extradition with the U.S.
Poor fellas might spend the rest of their lives on and island somewhere drinking Mimosas by the beach. Punishment fits the crime…
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Doubtful they ever get that far. If they are pardoned, they would have to appear to accept the pardon. They could be arrested on state charges immediately upon accepting the Federal pardon.
It is notable that the charges against all of these people are fairly slim considering the accusations and evidence that is publicly known. My guess is that each of these individuals knows that they would potentially face charges in state courts if they do accept a pardon since double jeopardy would not apply for crimes that have not been charged at the Federal level (double jeopardy applies only to sovereign courts, so state vs. Federal would not invoke jeopardy, but it could be a bad look for a prosecutor in such a visible and divisive prosecution). It sort of a “pardon insurance” to make sure that no one involved in this feels they are immune to prosecution if (not saying he has, but just IF) the President promised anyone a pardon prior to being tried.
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@justanotherfan Please correct me if I am wrong: I thought dbl jeopardy wouldn’t apply in state court on anything that WAS charged in federal court, either, because doesn’t it only apply to the same sovereign charging again for the same crime? And although an affirmative defense of res judicata could arguably be raised in state court if they were acquitted, I thought it would not be a bar to prosecution, but the state jury conceivably would have to decide whether a particular fact had been preclusively decided in the federal case (which is virtually impossible in an acquittal).
Manafort still has another federal trial, so the state stuff can wait.
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It would not invoke double jeopardy as you correctly state, but it could be a political problem to try them in state court for the same crime in federal court. I think Mueller is trying to avoid this appearance.
I should probably clarify my previous statement.
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this whole situation is extremely sad
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Kabuki Theatre. Impeach Trump - intentionally crash the stock market. The whole world’s economy goes tits up. The nation state concept is crashed, which harkens to the beacon call of the “workers of the world, unite” in the new one world government. This has all been planned for years. While Lefty and Righty duke it out, both sides are completely ignorant of the way they are being manipulated by the same source that controls both parties.
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Obama would have already been out of office in the same situation.
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@BShark And, oddly enough, I never suspected he would be anywhere near this situation!
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@mayjay Agree. I very much doubt Obama has a “fixer”. LOL
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@BShark If Obama had a Cohen, the Donald would have been paid off to drop the birth certif thing long ago so it wouldn’t interfere with Obama’s campaign.
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@KUSTEVE can you explain how the stock market is going to crash if Trump is impeached? Is there merit to it?
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@approxinfinity I don’t think the looming stock market crash has anything to do with Trump, impeachment, or anything that we see on tv. I think Trump’s job in this Kabuki Theatre is to put out the idea that the stock market could crash, to add that thought to the collective thought process. Whatever they end up blaming the crash on, you can be assured that it was a deliberate act meant to inflict enough pain across the world that people will look for alternatives other than the nation state. So, what really caused Mubarek to lose power in Egypt? Did it have anything to do with the fact there was an “unseen hand” that manipulated the financial markets that created huge financial turmoil for the citizens of Egypt that led them to take to the streets? Is that same “unseen” hand manipulating the financial markets now in Turkey, Argentina, Nicaragua, and Brazil in order to create as much turmoil as possible? We are watching an unseen and unreported world wide war on nation states. The goal is to disrupt every nation on earth, and they have practically unlimited finances, unlimited resources, and unlimited power.
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Trump is trying to get support from the business community to help protect him if/when things get worse.
Right now, there’s no chance of impeachment because Republicans will still hold between 47 and 52 Senate seats. I doubt the Democrats try to impeach (even if they win the House) if they don’t have a path to 67 in the Senate. I don’t see that path right now because I don’t see 15+ Republicans that will vote to impeach. So that point is premature, at least right now (the news seems to change quickly, though).
Trump support could erode amongst his base, however. The areas that are experiencing the most economic growth are focused around the larger cities and their suburbs. Those were areas where Trump did poorly compared to the 2008 and 2012 elections. Meanwhile, the areas that are not growing economically are “Trump counties” - typically more rural areas.
If that trend continues, even as he continues to promise that “he alone” can save their economy, he may start to lose some of that support. Now, perhaps not because Trump is, let’s call it unique. He may be able to avoid that erosion and hold on to his base in those areas. As I have said before, Trump’s biggest issue is that because he is so divisive, he has almost zero margin within his base. Even a small erosion of enthusiasm or support within his base likely crumbles his support because he’s already in such a tenuous position. Trump won in 2016 because he put together a perfect coalition of states. However, he won some of those critical states by less than 50,000 votes or so. In a state like Pennsylvania, with almost 6 million votes, if Trump loses even 2% of his base, he loses the state. If less than 1% of Trump’s base in Michigan were to erode, he loses that state. a 2% erosion in Wisconsin flips that state.
If Trump were to lose 3% of his base, Florida would be in play. Push that to 5%, North Carolina and Arizona are in play. Those 6 states are worth 101 electoral votes. You need 270 to win, and Trump won just over 300. Put simply, flipping those six states would push the margin back towards the 2012 Obama margin in favor of the Democrat.
Trump is threading a very narrow window here. He may well keep his base intact and survive, but he can’t afford a single misstep. Losing even a modest percentage of support (even if they don’t support the Democrat) changes the outcome in six states. Having those people actually flip to the Democrat (i.e., if a net of 25,000 people in PA were to switch from Trump to a Democrat opponent - less than 1% of the total Trump support) Trump loses Pennsylvania. That number is 5500 in Michigan, and about 11,000 in Wisconsin. These are tiny numbers in a statewide election.
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Yes, he has a slim margin but it will also heavily depend on who the democrats select. The new faces and potential candidate are all way to the left and the least liberal is Biden, who did not have enough support even as the sitting VP and would be 78 years old, in comparison, Reagang is the oldest elected president and was 69 at the time of his first inauguration.
The next election might be one in which a credible third party candidate can affect the results like Perot did taking many republican votes and helping Clinton in the process. If Sanders, who would be 79, runs as an independent the votes would come from the democrats; a more centrist candidate might take votes from both parties and I would no be surprised to see the winner get under 40% of the popular vote.
