... Ultimately, though, Mary Trump said her cousins would all be in court “maybe with the exception of Ivanka” if the presumptive GOP nominee had demanded it. Instead, she said Donald Trump doesn’t actually care about their presence.
“He’s much more disturbed by the absence of crowds outside rallying in his defense
"which is why we’re seeing this parade of increasingly pathetic and sycophantic members of Congress who should be maybe governing but are taking time out of their apparently not very busy days to help undermine Americans’ confidence in the rule of law,” she said.
Whether Trump’s children are there is “irrelevant to Donald,” she added. “His narcissistic needs are much greater than that so somebody else is going to have to make him feel better on that score but it’s a pretty obviously transactional family and if they’re not getting anything out of it, there’s no reason for them to be there.”
... The presumptive GOP nominee for president made, according to a Washington Post tracker, more than 30,000 false or misleading statements during his presidency....
I’ve got a functioning frontal cortex.
Ron Filipkowski
I pretty much made up my mind by 1986 that just about anyone would be more credible than Trump.
Interesting question from a network that had to pay $787.5B for lying which averages out to $1/lie.
Keith Olbermann
When I graduated from 2nd Grade to 3rd Grade
At around the point they didn't talk about windmills causing cancer or say that COVID could be cured by putting "lights inside you" or that Hannibal Lecter was a great guy. Can't pinpoint the exact moment, but it's in there somewhere.
After what must have been careful deliberation, Donald Trump’s defense team decided to end on the testimony of Robert Costello, an attorney who previously advised Michael Cohen. The consensus is this was an enormous blunder.
... Prosecutors have spun the narrative that Costello participated in a pressure campaign on Cohen in 2018 when Trump’s fixer was undergoing his own federal investigation in relation to the Stormy Daniels hush money payments and was considering turning on Trump.
However, instead of shaking the credibility of Cohen’s story, calling Costello to the stand as a witness gave the prosecutors a chance to reinforce their own narrative during cross-examination
Fingers crossed. The pundits are all over the map with their verdict predictions.
Mark F. Pomerantz resigned from Bragg's investigation over 2 years ago because he didn't think Bragg was aggressive enough. Bradley Smith (law professor) has credentials, but he's got an anti-campaign finance regulation agenda and he has no direct knowledge of the Trump case. Robert Costello did testify. It was widely seen as a disaster for Dolt .45.
Donald Trump’s pity party over his hush money trial in New York reached new heights on Wednesday when he compared himself to Mother Teresa.
As the jury began deliberating the case, the former president griped to reporters that the famed Catholic missionary “could not beat these charges.”
He continued to rant:
“I mean that: Mother Teresa could not beat those charges, but we’ll see,” Trump said. “We’ll see how we do. It’s a very disgraceful situation. Every single legal scholar said there’s no case and it shouldn’t be brought.”
However, the former president declined to answer a reporter who asked, “Do you mean you’re holier than Mother Teresa?”
Although both Mother Teresa and Trump were born to human parents and had all the hallmarks of the Homo sapiens species, the similarities might end there....
I'm sorry...did Donald Trump just pretty much say Mother Teresa slept with Stormy Daniels and paid her off?
A fine verdict indeed! There has already been talk about Trump trying to fund-raise with this and the effect of "galvanizing" his cult. Sure, why not?
But here's something better - this verdict wipes a lot of sense of invulnerability off of Trump. Because of all the dragging, the delay attempts, the endless appeals, yada, it was looking to many like he was just going to get away again. Now he's lost not only millions to E. Jean, but lost in a real jury criminal case. That brightens the outlook of millions of people who were otherwise discouraged, bringing confidence to the opposition.
Is that a real crowd or is it a deep fake from a soccer game?
Deep fake, but fun!
There was an irl version of that in my home.
Pundits are saying that these low level felonies would usually not get jail time. Me: 34 counts is not usual, sentence him at least to a symbolic 34 days.
Pundits are saying that these low level felonies would usually not get jail time. Me: 34 counts is not usual, sentence him at least to a symbolic 34 days.
I was out walking the dog so I missed the live feed. Small price to pay for 34 convictions.
There might be sentencing guidelines or minimums, not sure.
MAGA meltdown in progress.
Eamus Catuli~AC 000000000101010202020303010304 020405....Ahhhh, forget it, it's gonna be a while.
Minutes before Trump, the Republican presumptive nominee, was found guilty on all 34 felony counts in the Manhattan hush-money case, Hogan shared a Thursday post on the social media platform X, saying that “regardless” of the outcome, Americans should respect the legal “process” and the verdict.
“At this dangerously divided moment in our history, all leaders—regardless of party—must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship,” Hogan said. “We must reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law.”
Horrors!
In a little more than an hour, LaCivita, a veteran consultant, who has been overseeing day-to-day operations of the Republican National Committee (RNC) since March, fired back at the former governor, saying “You just ended your campaign.”
Idiot, Hogan was never counting on whiny MAGAt votes, anyhow.
... “We know he was never going to testify, so he really needed to just behave like a respectful, decent human being who is taking this seriously, and not just sort of skating on his hope that the jury was going to be so intimidated by him and his power and his position,” Mary Trump said....
“The irony for him,” Mary Trump said on MSNBC, is that “if he behaved like a human being throughout this trial, I think that the risk of prison would have been fairly low.”
“But because of his egregious behavior,” she continued, “because he broke that gag order 11 times, because the judge had to make that ruling and because the judge deferred any significant punishment, I think the chances that he gets a prison term have increased exponentially.”...
... Trump rarely discusses his personal use of firearms. But in a 2012 interview, he told The Washington Times that he held a concealed carry license in New York and owned two handguns — a .45-caliber H&K and a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson. Trump told French Magazine Valeurs Actuelles four years later, “I always carry a weapon on me.”
Under New York law, a felony conviction revokes a concealed carry license and the court must order the convict to give up their guns. Because the convictions were issued by a New York state court, a presidential pardon cannot expunge them....
Best Thanksgiving ever, even better if both served prison sentences.
