Trump/Republican Coup Thread

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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Broomstick »

Lord Revan wrote: 2021-02-01 09:12pm Well it's complicated since IIRC "insanity defense" is one those things that's really, really hard to pull of successfully, not mention it would essentially involve admission of guilt. I suspect the prosecutors might offer it as an option but I doubt Trump would accept it.
Zaune wrote: 2021-02-01 11:16pm What about a psychiatric evaluation before the hearing to determine his fitness to stand trial? I'm not overly familiar with US law but I presume that's not something that can only be done at the request of the accused or their advocate.
The "Stable Genius" would NEVER admit to having any form of mental illness, no matter how mild.

Also, the trial in the Senate is neither a criminal or civil proceeding, the rules are likely to be different. If I recall, the Senate gets to make the rules for this.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Zaune »

The "stable genius" doesn't necessarily get a choice in the matter, because if his mental capacity to testify in his own defence on oath is called into question then so is his capacity to give informed consent to medical procedures.

And I presume the DoJ, the Attorney-General's office or whoever is responsible for this sort of thing has some sort of policy guideline drawn up for what to do when a president who's being impeached proves he should have been removed under the 25th amendment but wasn't because politics. Making plans for situations that arise when the elected part of the government cocks up royally is what a professional civil service is for.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Ralin »

Zaune wrote: 2021-02-02 05:25am
And I presume the DoJ, the Attorney-General's office or whoever is responsible for this sort of thing has some sort of policy guideline drawn up for what to do when a president who's being impeached proves he should have been removed under the 25th amendment but wasn't because politics. Making plans for situations that arise when the elected part of the government cocks up royally is what a professional civil service is for.
Ha. Haha. Ahahahahahahaha.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Solauren »

Ralin wrote: 2021-02-02 06:33am
Zaune wrote: 2021-02-02 05:25am And I presume the DoJ, the Attorney-General's office or whoever is responsible for this sort of thing has some sort of policy guideline drawn up for what to do when a president who's being impeached proves he should have been removed under the 25th amendment but wasn't because politics. Making plans for situations that arise when the elected part of the government cocks up royally is what a professional civil service is for.
Ha. Haha. Ahahahahahahaha.
Zaune, that makes two specific assumptions

#1 - Someone actually thought those circumstances up, and then had the balls draw up those plans, before it ever came up.
Plans like that are rarely done prior to being needed. Doing so before hand is like saying "I expect this to happen during my term of employment."
Also, doing so, if word got out, could be the cause of termination of said employment.


But, let's ignore that, and look at when Impeachment of a President did come up, post Amendment 25, so see if there could have been cause to make someone go 'you know what, we need that policy'.

The last president to be impeached was Bill Clinton.
He is also the only President to be impeached after that amendment was put in place. (Nixon resigned)

So, with Clinton....
Section 1 couldn't be implied to him, as he was still in office, and still alive (and wanting to remain in office)
(Section 1 is for the death, or resignation of the president). (Section 1 applied to Nixon)

Section 2 is not applicable (as it's for filling the now vacant vice presidency)
(It applied to Nixon's resignation)

Section 3 wasn't implemented, because Clinton never temporialy transferred his powers
Section 3 WAS implements by two former presidents during their term in office, both for medical procedures.
Specifically, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush. Once the procedures were completed and they checked out of hospital, they resumed the role of president, and returned the vice presidency to it's previous holder.

Section 4 has never been implemented
That is when the Vice President and Cabinant remove the President from office.
(This was one of the plot elements from 'Air Force One').

Both Clinton, and Trump, had the full support of their cabinet.
(Mind you, I have to wonder, if the insurrection had occurred right after the election, would they have removed Trump at that point to save their own skins?)

So, no administration prior to Trump, has circumstances where policies like you are suggesting were needed.

(I've seen it argued after the fact it might have been needed for Reagan, and that his people might have been covering up early signs of Alzheimer's disease well before his 1994 diagnosis, but Reagan was never impeached, and was very open with his diagnosis so I personally have my doubts on that)



#2 - If such plans were created under a previous administration, (say Clinton ordered it for shits and giggles after he was impeached but was not convicted), that they survived the transfer between administrations!

I say this because, one of the mainframe computer systems at work was replaced during an change in Administration. On the way out, to make sure the new system remained, and the old system couldn't be restored, the outgoing administration had (nearly) all the old manuals for that system destroyed. The only ones that remains were for the 'conversion' team, and copies people still had for themselves that they refused to admit to having when the order came down.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by bilateralrope »

'Stingy': Donald Trump's legal team allegedly quit over payment dispute
When five members of former US president Donald Trump's legal team quit just days before his impeachment trial, it made global headlines.

At the time, the official reason given for the abrupt departures was differences of opinion regarding legal strategy – but now, US news agency Axios claims there was another major factor at play – money.

According to Axios, insiders claim the "notoriously stingy" former president clashed with head lawyer Butch Bowers over his fees, despite Trump raising US$170 million (NZ$237m) in donations which could be used to pay his legal expenses.

They allegedly agreed Bowers would pocket US$250,000, but that didn't include other expenses.

Trump was apparently furious when he was told the total cost would be around US$3m, and they eventually negotiated it down to US$1m.

But in the end, the stoush over money, combined with tension over legal strategy, resulted in the mass walkout.

Yesterday, it was revealed two lawyers with ties to Bill Cosby and Jeffrey Epstein had been recruited to the team - David Schoen and Bruce Castor Jr.

In 2005, Castor decided not to prosecute disgraced actor and comedian Bill Cosby for the sexual assault of Andrea Constand.

Schoen met with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein days before his August 2019 death.

Today, Schoen said Democrats were using Trump's upcoming Senate impeachment trial as a political "weapon" to bar him from seeking office again. He described the case against the former president as "undemocratic" and unconstitutional.

"It's also the most ill-advised legislative action that I've seen in my lifetime," Schoen said in an interview with Fox News.

Trump is the first president in American history to be impeached twice. He faces trial before the Senate next week on accusations that he incited the deadly siege at the US Capitol on January 6, when a mob of loyalists overran the police and stormed the building.
I wonder if Trump is planning to pay the two lawyers who are now his defense team. I also wonder if they think he is planning to pay them.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Raw Shark »

bilateralrope wrote: 2021-02-02 03:54pmI wonder if Trump is planning to pay the two lawyers who are now his defense team. I also wonder if they think he is planning to pay them.
Based on Trump's track record and their resumes, I'm almost willing to bet they're just doing it For The Evulz.

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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Solauren »

If I was Trumps lawyer, I'd want to be paid 100% of my expected legal fee before the trial. All legal papers with me. And when I mean before the trial, I mean "12 noon the day before trial, I had better be paid, or I will be announcing my withdraw at a press conference at 12:15"

The same with payments if the trial runs longer then expected. (But, to be fair, if he paid me for an extra week, and it only ran 3 days, I'd refund him 40% of the fee). I know I really wouldn't have to, but I don't want the chance he decides he's paid for 20 hours of my time, and proceed to talk to me past the court case.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by bilateralrope »

Trump's new lawyers have a lack of attention to detail.

Trump lawyers misspelled 'United States' in their defence brief for Trump's impeachment trial
Former President Donald Trump’s impeachment lawyers misspelled the name of the country they were in Tuesday, filing a document that addressed “Members of the Unites States Senate.”

The typo was at the top of a 14-page brief filed ahead of Trump’s impeachment trial in the United States Senate. It argued that impeaching a former president would be unconstitutional, even though the Senate has previously impeached several public officials who left office.

Image

Trump — who when he had a Twitter account frequently made bizarre spelling errors and had erratic capitalisation and punctuation errors — has been disdainful of typographical errors.

According to an Axios report, he said it was “very embarrassing” that Sidney Powell, the conspiratorial attorney who falsely alleged conspiracy theories to explain Trump’s 2020 election loss, spelled “district” as “districct” and “distrcoict” in a lawsuit challenging the election results.

“That was very embarrassing. That shouldn’t have happened,” Trump said, according to Axios.

The attorneys who filed the brief on Trump’s behalf, David Schoen and Bruce Castor Jr., had only a short time to put together the document. Their hires were announced Saturday, shortly after everyone else on Trump’s team quit.

Schoen and Castor argued in the brief that the Senate “lacks jurisdiction to remove from office a man who does not hold office,” even though there is ample precedent for it doing exactly that. They also argued that Trump’s conspiracy theories claiming that the 2020 election was rigged, which led to an insurrection and riot at the Capitol building that left five people dead, was not an impeachable offence.

The House of Representatives charged Trump in January with inciting an insurrection. On Tuesday, its impeachment managers filed their own brief, arguing against the notion that any president could get a free pass from Congress in the waning days of their presidency.

“There is no ‘January Exception’ to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution,” the impeachment managers’ brief said. “A president must answer comprehensively for his conduct in office from his first day in office through his last.”
The shitshow begins.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Rogue 9 »

Spelling errors are distressingly common in court filings from what I've noticed having gone through a lawsuit myself and reading court papers on important cases over the years. It's not really surprising.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

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As someone who deals with issuing and processing legal cases every day, typos are absurdly commonplace. Not just from claimants/defendants either - there is a reason we have an entry on our time-management database for "Deciphering Judge's Handwriting."
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Lord Revan »

Eternal_Freedom wrote: 2021-02-03 05:14pm As someone who deals with issuing and processing legal cases every day, typos are absurdly commonplace. Not just from claimants/defendants either - there is a reason we have an entry on our time-management database for "Deciphering Judge's Handwriting."
So judges are like MDs as in their handwriting is infamously bad?
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

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Lord Revan wrote: 2021-02-03 07:18pm
Eternal_Freedom wrote: 2021-02-03 05:14pm As someone who deals with issuing and processing legal cases every day, typos are absurdly commonplace. Not just from claimants/defendants either - there is a reason we have an entry on our time-management database for "Deciphering Judge's Handwriting."
So judges are like MDs as in their handwriting is infamously bad?
I've had doctors tell me that when they are unsure how to spell something, the hard core squiggles come out.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Khaat »

Trump’s conspiracy theories claiming that the 2020 election was rigged, which led to an insurrection and riot at the Capitol building that left five people dead, was not an impeachable offence.
There, fixed it for you. Idiots.
Could Trumps lack of actual defense just be taken as a "guilty" plea? It would save us from months of "the GOP Senate fails democracy" on repeat, from "both sides".
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Ace Pace »

Khaat wrote: 2021-02-03 08:35pm
Trump’s conspiracy theories claiming that the 2020 election was rigged, which led to an insurrection and riot at the Capitol building that left five people dead, was not an impeachable offence.
There, fixed it for you. Idiots.
Could Trumps lack of actual defense just be taken as a "guilty" plea? It would save us from months of "the GOP Senate fails democracy" on repeat, from "both sides".
No. Because the process is (deliberately) a political process.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

Lord Revan wrote: 2021-02-03 07:18pm
Eternal_Freedom wrote: 2021-02-03 05:14pm As someone who deals with issuing and processing legal cases every day, typos are absurdly commonplace. Not just from claimants/defendants either - there is a reason we have an entry on our time-management database for "Deciphering Judge's Handwriting."
So judges are like MDs as in their handwriting is infamously bad?
Judges are, on average, worse than doctors. To make the situation more frustrating most of them are of an older generation that aren't very computer-literate, so asking them to type orders/comments/directions rather than scrawl them is a non-starter.

It gets to the point where if I have a complicated referral to deal with, that I know will result in a set of directions to list a hearing and/or an order to type, I refer it to one of three Judges (out of the dozen civil Judges we have full-time) just so I can read what they've told me to do.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by loomer »

Yeah, it's a whole Thing. My doctor and I used to have a joke when I was being diagnosed with dysgraphia. I'd say my handwriting was so bad that perhaps she should recommend a medical school, and she'd say it was so bad that medical school wouldn't cut it, law school was the only option.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Lord Revan »

loomer wrote: 2021-02-04 08:16pm Yeah, it's a whole Thing. My doctor and I used to have a joke when I was being diagnosed with dysgraphia. I'd say my handwriting was so bad that perhaps she should recommend a medical school, and she'd say it was so bad that medical school wouldn't cut it, law school was the only option.
Lol, I really need to show this to my dad, he's a retired lawyer and I know he won't be offended by it.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Mr Bean »

One of the annoying things about the situation is listening to the Democratic House Impeachment managers go out on the various talk shows and announce No Lessons will be learned (TM).

The Trump Impeach will have no witnesses (Despite the Democrats being in control) it will have no testimony (Despite the Democrats being in control) and all indications are the goal is to hurry things along (Despite the Democrats being in control) so they have more time for "legislation".

I'm going to call it right now, with the filibuster intact the 2021 congress is going to pass less bills to President Biden desk than the 2020 Congress did to President Trump's desk.

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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

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To be fair, the Democrats did invite Trump to speak in his own defense. Trumplestiltskin refused.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Mr Bean »

Broomstick wrote: 2021-02-06 03:58pm To be fair, the Democrats did invite Trump to speak in his own defense. Trumplestiltskin refused.
They asked they did not subpoena him. Still they play nice as can be.

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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

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Yes. They invited him.

A subpoena is not inviting or asking nicely. A subpoena is an order.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Batman »

I think that was Bean's point
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by GuppyShark »

Without the Senate votes for a conviction, impeachment seems pointless. The next time the GOP has the house, they'll be able to use that precedent to impeach the moment a Democrat sneezes.
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Ralin »

GuppyShark wrote: 2021-02-06 05:47pm Without the Senate votes for a conviction, impeachment seems pointless. The next time the GOP has the house, they'll be able to use that precedent to impeach the moment a Democrat sneezes.
Because that was stopping them?
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Re: Trump/Republican Coup Thread

Post by Mr Bean »

Batman wrote: 2021-02-06 05:26pm I think that was Bean's point
It was my point, they asked now they should be making him show up. Impeachment is not a criminal trial so they can make him stand in front of Congress and talk (Which will be terrible for him) or say nothing (Which he won't be able to do emotionally).

The Democratic party just saw the opposition President organize a half ass coup attempt that failed because the person running it was to incompetent to actually plan it. Rather than react with the real shock and horror this requires they are going to go forward and join the Republican party in downplaying how bad it was. If they were taking it seriously they might be focused on the attempted coup that occurred less than a month ago.

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