There was no secession. Secession is when a state leaves the union. — frank

Secession from reality.

Calling, chanting, fomenting. The guy must be a sorcerer.

Calling, chanting, fomenting. The guy must be a sorcerer. — NOS4A2

No, just a demagogue and false messiah. The faithful do what he says.

Secession from reality. — Michael

Could be.

There was no secession. — frank

Not 'secession', 'sedition' - my mistake - some of the Proud Boys participants were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

false messiah — Fooloso4

False Messiah. Def: — Leader whose followers get crucified before he does.

That looks just like Bray-fart from Scotchland, London.

That looks just like Bray-fart from Scotchland, London. — unenlightened

Could be the same guy?

False Messiah. Def: — Leader whose followers get crucified before he does. — unenlightened

They do not believe he is a false messiah, but he does want them to believe that they are the one's being crucified. As he told the faithful in Waco:

They're coming after you.

Trump has landed in the viper's den, New York, where the two-tiered justice system is at its strongest and most blatant. I hope we get to watch this Potemkin court in all of its glory, but my guess is a media circus will be barred and a gag order thrown upon the accused.

Trump has landed in the viper's den, New York, — NOS4A2

... where he was met at JFK by Cat Woman and the Penguin. They drove to Trump Tower where they met the Joker

Viper 2: a vicious or treacherous person.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/viper

The Penguin is very treacherous.

Feels a bit like Christmas Eve.

Apparently he won't be getting a mugshot (and won't be handcuffed).

Ex-Presidents get special treatment.

Donald Trumps arraignment is scheduled to take place at 2:15 today. Events around the arraignment will be broadcast and streamed live by a number of sources. There will be a live press conference by the prosecutor at 3:30.

19:15 for those of us living in the One True Timezone.

19:15 for those of us living in the One True Timezone. — Michael

Yes. Sorry for the parochialism.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-65167017

Following his arrival at court, Donald Trump is now formally under arrest and in police custody ahead of his upcoming arraignment.

Indictment

34 counts of "falsifying business records in the first degree".

The defendant ... with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof, made and caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise...

Statement of Facts

1. The defendant DONALD J. TRUMP repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.

2. From August 2015 to December 2017, the Defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects. In order to execute the unlawful scheme, the participants violated election laws and made and caused false entries in the business records of various entities in New York. The participants also took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme.

3. One component of this scheme was that, at the Defendant’s request, a lawyer who then worked for the Trump Organization as Special Counsel to Defendant (“Lawyer A”), covertly paid $130,000 to an adult film actress shortly before the election to prevent her from publicizing a sexual encounter with the Defendant. Lawyer A made the $130,000 payment through a shell corporation he set up and funded at a bank in Manhattan. This payment was illegal, and Lawyer A has since pleaded guilty to making an illegal campaign contribution and served time in prison. Further, false entries were made in New York business records to effectuate this payment, separate and apart from the New York business records used to conceal the payment.

4. After the election, the Defendant reimbursed Lawyer A for the illegal payment through a series of monthly checks, first from the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust (the “Defendant’s Trust”)—a Trust created under the laws of New York which held the Trump Organization entity assets after the Defendant was elected President—and then from the Defendant’s bank account. Each check was processed by the Trump Organization, and each check was disguised as a payment for legal services rendered in a given month of 2017 pursuant to a retainer agreement. The payment records, kept and maintained by the Trump Organization, were false New York business records. In truth, there was no retainer agreement, and Lawyer A was not being paid for legal services rendered in 2017. The Defendant caused his entities’ business records to be falsified to disguise his and others’ criminal conduct.

1 down and three to go in 2023

The timeline of MAGA Loser #1's legal reckoning for his 2016-2023 crime spree (excluding potentially ruinous civil lawsuits) is taking a definite shape:

1. NYC felony indictment 31Mar23 :up:
"34 counts of Business Documents Fraud Crealing and/or Covering-up Felonies", etc

https://apnews.com/article/trump-indictment-full-document-640043319549?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=RelatedStories&utm_campaign=position_02

2. Fulton County, GA  (pending by 1May23)
"Suborning Election Fraud", etc

[link indictments here]

3. South Florida (pending by 1Jun23) "Mishandled Documents & Obstruction of Justice", etc

[link indictments here]

4. Washington, DC (pending 1Sept23 > DoJ might save this one for 1Dec24 :eyes:)
"J6 Insurrection", etc

[link indictments here]

Next court appearance for DJT for the NY case is currently listed for 4th December. Quite possibly several other indictments will have been unsealed in the meanwhile.

Comment from today's SMH put the finger on what the NY indictment is actually about, which is more than falsification of business records:

What Bragg [said] was that this case is not a garden-variety fiddling with the books. Bragg made that clear in two sentences in the indictment and one sentence in his media conference:

“The defendant Donald J. Trump repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election. From August 2015 to December 2017, the defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the defendant’s electoral prospects.”

Addressing the media, Bragg said that under New York law it is a crime to “conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means. That is exactly what this case is about.”

In other words, says Bragg, Trump was criminally messing with the 2016 presidential election. Much bigger than bad bookkeeping. ...The Bragg indictment presents a credible case of an unlawful attempt to decisively affect the outcome of the presidential election.

It’s the same alleged modus operandi in the 2020 campaign. Trump is vulnerable to being indicted for committing the same class of crimes in Georgia. (“I just want to find 11,780 votes!”) — Bruce Wolpe

Yup. :up: 'Superceding indictments' for felonies related to State Campaign Finance Fraud and State Tax Fraud (and maybe Grand Jury Witness Tampering (e.g. M. Cohen, A. Weisselberg, et al) are coming.

Remember when Republicans complained bitterly that Obama had the audacity to appear at a press conference wearing a tan suit?

Remember when Republicans complained bitterly that Obama had the audacity to appear at a press conference wearing a tan suit? — Wayfarer

Because of his brown face – yeah I do. Everyday, still. :mask:

DJ Trump spins another: the first time ever a porn star is paid to keep her mouth shut.

From August 2015 to December 2017, the Defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects.

He was influencing the 2016 election all through 2017. Trump is so powerful he can influence elections in the past.

:eyes: Putin's Bitch was engaged in a cover-up of 2016 crimes while squatting in the Oval Office by signing reimbursement checks to his fixer in 2017. MAGA is as MAGA does. :shade:

As no felony is stipulated in the indictment, the grand jury could only indict on the misdemeanour? Therefore, Bragg could only obtain a felony indictment by misleading the Grand Jury. This is the only crime here. And it doesn't require legal training to understand.

It continues to beggar belief, that when it comes to Donald J Trump otherwise sensible people consistently lose their ethical compass. Depressingly, this phenomena was evident during COVID and this war in the Ukraine and strongly suggests that many if not all of those otherwise sensible people are merely proficient at mimicry; what they are is ethical blank slates ready to unconsciously prostrate themselves in whatever direction is necessary to fit in..

In other words, for many if not most people, no matter how well educated they might be, their morality is really a keenly developed sense of fashion. Drop these people into the 19th century mid-west or 1940 Germany and in a New York minute, they turn into Supremacists.

On one level this is all misanthropically cynical. But on the other, it's liberating. Because if the masses of people and our authorities are this hopelessly fallible, then the intuition of the humble authentic self conscious individual - the organic self - is elevated to the locus of meaning and the only cure to this suicidal nihilism.

As no felony is stipulated in the indictment, the grand jury could only indict on the misdemeanour? Therefore, Bragg could only obtain a felony indictment by misleading the Grand Jury. This is the only crime here. And it doesn't require legal training to understand. — yebiga

His indictment consists of 34 felony charges, which are often prosecuted as misdemeanors but that doesn't make them midsdemeanors. Read it here: https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Donald-J.-Trump-Indictment.pdf

Happy?

The New York prosecutors performed legal gymnastics to pretzel the misdemeanor counts into felonies, claiming the falsified records were meant to conceal another crime without stating in the indictment what that crime was.

One potential crime would be a violation of federal campaign finance laws — Bragg has no jurisdiction over federal proceedings. The Department of Justice does, but it has already passed on this case, as has the Federal Election Commission.