How is former president of the US Donald Trump still free when a lot of the accomplices in things he has been indicted for are already in jail and or prison except him?
How is former president of the US Donald Trump still free when a lot of the accomplices in things he has been indicted for are already in jail and or prison except him?
I am asking here because all the political subs don't allow a question, and US politics used to seemed so simple until to understand this man came along.
Because this needs to be done 1000% right, there is no margin for error, everything has to be done in an iron clad manner that cannot be dismantled by half-assing it. Indicting a former president is a first in the history of this country, and this former president is nothing short of a cult leader with millions of unshakable followers, many of whom are armed to the teeth and ready to burn this country to the ground for him. So this has to be done very friggin carefully.
Part of it is because there are still looming constitutional questions about whether a president, current or former, can be indicted for his actions during his presidency. I think we've mostly resolved those, though. A substantial and powerful cadre of political thugs is still going to try to sue to throw every conceivable barrier in the way of a reasonable interpretation of the law, but that just takes time to wade through the bullshit.
Another big problem is that Trump captured a huge amount of the judiciary, at all federal levels, by putting cronies into high ranking judicial seats. It's the main thing Republicans have been doing for, like, 50 years. Putting a case in front of any one of those is a landmine, and that minefield has to be carefully navigated, and that also takes time. We're basically done with that part, now.
The much bigger problem, in my perspective, is that any criminal trial requires a jury.
Almost 50% of the voting public voted for this motherfucker. His approval has dipped sharply since then, but still, a huge portion of the US public is willing to do just about anything to make sure "their guy" wins. They have proven nearly invulnerable to rational argument, emotional argument and any appeal to empathy or compassion. They will lie to get on that jury, and then they will vote for his acquittal if they don't get caught. Voir dire--the process of choosing that jury--is going to be one of the most harrowing things any prosecutor ever has to do. And it has to be done correctly because it's extremely important that once the wheels of justice start turning, that they reach the correct verdict.
Any thinking person knows what that verdict has to be. But there's no guarantee that we'll get it.
And if we don't get it, we see the rule of law start to collapse at all levels. Remember the 1992 riots after the cops that beat Rodney King got acquitted? Imagine a whole country of that. The prosecutors in these cases are thinking about that. And that's why they're being extremely meticulous about every detail of these proceedings, because their errors could cost us a lot more than Trump getting away.
Well, aside from what others are saying...
Try to picture Trump on the phone with the Proud Boys, giving them explicit instructions or discussing strategy. Even if he did talk to them (which I doubt), surely it'd be his usual "We're going to do great things, great things, we're all great people, we're gonna turn this thing around, it's going to be beautiful!"
When Russia collaborated to help Trump get elected, do you figure they talked on the phone in person? Or emailed back and forth? Motherfucker couldn't make it through a one-page intelligence briefing, I'm not even sure he can write. Surely it was Trump's people working with Putin's people (several levels down in both cases).
You need to prove that Trump personally and intentionally violated the law. It's not enough to show that shady shit was going on around him. And that's hard to prove, since he generally was working at a remove. And this is a guy who's been in and out of courtrooms his entire adult life; surely he has some instinct for what kinds of things to avoid.
Trump has avoided legal trouble so far because there hasn't been enough evidence to guarantee charges would stick. With the latest few indictments, he either basically admitted to the charges or other new evidence came to light. It's taken so long because the prosecutors are making sure they built absolutely bulletproof cases, and because the nature of the trials (first time a former president has been charged), and because trump's lawyers are trying to delay as much as possible. It's basically a huge mess, but the general sentiment is that trump is screwed... Eventually.
It's a good question - all Constitutional scholars agree he has violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and is therefore ineligible to hold any political office (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/08/donald-trump-constitutionally-prohibited-presidency/675048/) but does America have the collective strength to admit it?
I mean, I would never talk directly to them. And you would never talk directly to them. But neither one of us would go on the record on video saying we could stand in the middle of 5th avenue and shoot somebody.
There have been plenty of cases where he's done some incredibly stupid things that he could easily have gotten away with simply by playing along. Hell look at the documents, he could have literally just made photocopies of them said my bad and It would never have even hit the press.
I think the legal system is just moving as slowly and carefully as possible to make sure he can't lawyer his way out of these things.
Because current US politics and justice system are a sham that only serves the rich.
How come there are still people who get the death penalty but later get found to be innocent, while when it comes to an ex-politician, they gotta drag the process out for years and years to find every single detail?
If they arrest him, there is a major concern of right-wing terrorism.
Police departments don't want that to happen because they'll have to arrest their own.
Government departments will also start to point fingers at one another, as loyal maga fucks deep inside places may refuse to act or do their job.
The legal way is the most non-violent way to handle this, even if it does drag on and on.
Money and power. He has (or claims to have) alot of money and alot of people on the Right still seem to follow him, but I think that's more just based on momentum, there's really nobody else on the Right that they have that's as "charismatic" as Trump. The closest they have is DeSantis, and he's just some wannabe fanboy with no personality. I personally think Trump is pretty much done and washed up, the GOP just doesn't know what else to do at this point (certainly he still has a shot at the presidency, but I doubt it'll work out). The Right had one really good shot at a violent coup on January 6, and the only reason they really managed to pull anything off was because Trump himself was in charge at the time and he was able to subdue the Federal response to it.
I think one of the main reasons he's being treated with kid gloves is out too much caution of it appearing political. I think the DOJ is afraid of appearing partisan if the Democrat's #1 political opponent were to be locked up (regardless of how slam dunk the evidence is). In any other country, we'd assume that it was a dictator trying to tighten their control of the political system by locking up their opponents, and that's exactly what Biden/DOJ/Democrats are being accused of. Personally I think there's going to be some amount of protest or violence if/when he gets locked up/sentenced/found guilty/whatever, they may as well just do it now to get it out of the way. The longer we wait and the closer we get to the election, the worse it's going to get. It honestly won't matter how much evidence is trotted out during the multiple trials, or how many judges/juries find him guilty, Republicans are still going to bitch and whine about it. He's obviously guilty though, there's more than enough evidence.
The only good thing about trump is that I've learned a lot about how gov't, justice, and red states are. Good is probably the wrong world.
Law is very different for rich people.
It's very political, because of course it is!
As the president, and now ex-president, of the United States there are a significant number of political factions at play. If you're going to go for the king you better not miss, definitely applies to the politics of the president.
People in his orbit, don't have the same political protections, they won't create as much trouble when they go down. So they go down. They simply don't have the protection the leader has.
Have faith. Coming from a country that jails our ex prime minister, I’ll say that it takes quite a lot of time.
It's as simple as this: -Politician does something illegal -Politician is caught -Politician tells their party members they didn't do -Party members believe politician because they're of the same party -Politician now has millions of supporters vouching for them not to get convicted -Politician doesn't get convicted
It's happened before, it's happening now, it'll happen again.
You sit through seasons of the Sopranos wondering the same thing about Tony.
He's a Honeypot /s
The most practical answer is because he’s watched by the Secret Service 24/7, which isn’t the case with a lot of people.
Because the oligarchy will never charge one of their own. No matter how loud they scream it and deny, he is one of them
I assume they're being quadruply careful with trump. The last thing they want is to take him to court and lose.
Because he's the right's main leader and he is a former president. That's all, really.
Money
there's very little likelihood that he goes to jail. he has lifetime secret service protection. do the secret service go to jail with him? it's more likely that they will make some sort of weird agreement that has nothing to do with jail. he's immune to criminal law basically