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Chris J. Karr's avatar

"Right up until November 5th, when, very possibly, Donald Trump wins the presidency. But if he does win, he might not be president. Because New York has the last laugh in July, when Trump is sentenced. If they do it right, they can guarantee Trump is in custody on January 20th, 2025, at noon, when he’s supposed to be taking the oath of office. And New York can deny the inmate visitation from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and deny the inmate taking the oath of office, so he can’t be sworn in."

Which Red State governor's going to be the first in front of a microphone promising to mobilize their National Guard to invade New York to liberate Trump?

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Steve Berman's avatar

Absurd isn’t it? There you have your John Brown / Harpers Ferry moment and the seeds of civil war.

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Steve Berman's avatar

THANK YOU everyone. Seriously, this is an absurd piece because we live in an absurd political time. I thank you for remaining (mostly) civil despite having widely divergent political opinions and worldviews. We are all here living through this moment together, and The Racket News prides itself for not fomenting division, but encouraging GOOD conversation. Thankfully, we don't have to live together 24/7, but we can spend some time here treating each other like human beings.

That being said: the Bragg conviction on 34 counts specifically crafted to fit certain actions Trump took, among thousands of things he has done in decades of being--Trump, is the least satisfying way of trying to hurt Trump or MAGA. And it won't work. Plus, it's likely to be overturned on appeal.

Bragg should not have done it. But yes, if I was on the jury, with the evidence and instruction given to the other jurors, a guilty verdict would have been unavoidable. Trump didn't even try to stop it. He revels in being the victim and he now has an undisputable fact of "paying" for his actions (which many think are in the best tradition of American protest)--he has suffered conviction in court. That puts him up there with Bill Ayers, Huey Newton, Muhammad Abdul Aziz, and Khalil Islam.

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SGman's avatar

That's an interesting thing about all this: Michael Cohen went to jail for his part in the scheme, so why would anyone think investigating the other party involved in said crime (Trump) to be wrong to do?

Seriously, I don't get it.

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Susan Bagwell's avatar

Because it's a cult.

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Jay Berman's avatar

Welcome to Zoolander USA.

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Linda wallack's avatar

im an accountant...a good one. this was bullshit

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Steve Berman's avatar

The case?

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SGman's avatar

Context helps.

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Linda wallack's avatar

the "case".

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SGman's avatar

What about it?

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Linda wallack's avatar

Maybe I should ask you what law code number the case involved..last I heard there wasn't one. I thought the case was an accounting GL assignment as legal fees.

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SGman's avatar

New York Penal Law §175.10 - falsification of business records in the first degree

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Linda wallack's avatar

An NDA is legal exp because it's a legal agreement. Line items on accounting reports are very large categories. This was a legal exp on the expenditure line.

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SGman's avatar

The "sad" thing is that Trump could have legally bought Ms. Daniels's silence multiple other ways: he chose to do it in a way that opened him to legal jeopardy.

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Bill Pearson's avatar

What is truly interesting is the other 3 trials were all more substantive and more likely to result in convictions (and none of them were to be held in New York BTW for those arguing it's a NY thing). Now we know why he is fighting so hard to keep them from proceeding. Actually we already knew why, but this amplifies it 100 fold.

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Susan Bagwell's avatar

No worries. All the players in every other case are actively fighting to keep Trump from seeing justice.

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Kim's avatar

I cheered at the verdict and immediately felt sad that our country has fallen to such a serious low. Your column is the first I read that quotes Franklin Graham. How a child of Billy Graham could have strayed so far from truth is a question only God can answer. I take solace in knowing his knee will bow, just as we all will, but he will be held to a higher standard because of his position as a pastor. I don't know what the future holds for our country but I have fastened my seatbelt.

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Curtis Stinespring's avatar

I read this three times. The fiction about NY government imprisoning Trump so he cannot be sworn in should he win the presidential election is entertaining. I do feel that justifying a sham trial convicting Trump, because he "deserves" it, is not exactly a defense of our legal system. It exposes the hypocrisy of: "The end can never justify the means". Evidently it does in Trump's case.

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SGman's avatar

How about because one person already went to jail for their part in the same crime, and it only makes sense to investigate the other party in the crime - regardless of their stature?

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Cameron Sprow's avatar

Hey, you know what, I think I'll stick with the analysis of Jonathan Turley and Alan Dershowitz concerning all this, both of whom are registered democrats, by the way.

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Jay Berman's avatar

It is so much easier not to need to bend over backwards defending Trump. And I can still call out the President when I disagree with him too.

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SGman's avatar

:knee slap.gif:

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Kim's avatar

I will stick to legal scholars like Judge Luttig and lawyers like Neal Katyal when it comes to the actions of trump.

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Cameron Sprow's avatar

I will stick to fair-minded people, rather than partisan hacks

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Salted Grits's avatar

I am not ever forgetting that there were S-E-V-E-N-T-E-E-N candidates for the 2016 Republican Party presidential nomination. S-E-V-E-N-T-E-E-N!!!!! It is not the Democratic Party's fault that Republican primary voters selected the Mango Mussolini. Clinton received 2,868,691 more votes than the now convicted felon did.

Approximately 28.5% of eligible voters turned out for the 2016 presidential primary. This debacle rests squarely on the shoulders of every single Republican voter who failed to show up during the 2016 presidential primary to vote for a candidate other than the candidate who, as you stated, "bankrupted a frickin’ casino, where the house is guaranteed to win; who bankrupted an airline with the most profitable route (Boston-New York shuttle) from the bankrupted Eastern Airlines; who bankrupted an entire professional football league; who sold steaks, fake college degrees, vitamins, and now golden sneakers; who turned his father’s real estate empire into an ash-heap of rococo and gilded debt."

Even worse is the fact that they failed to show up again in 2024 in spite of Jan 6.

If you ever wonder how Hitler was able to do the horrific things he did, you are watching it unfold before your very eyes. God help us if he gets back into the Oval Office. What he sets in motion will not die with him.

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