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United States40776 Posts
On March 26 2024 23:29 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2024 23:06 KwarK wrote:On March 26 2024 22:21 Introvert wrote:On March 26 2024 14:15 KwarK wrote: The lenders testified that they relied upon his financials when offering the loan. This has all been litigated and settled. I’m not sure you’re really making an effort to be informed about it. The “fine” is literally just paying back his ill gotten gains, that’s it. The banks gave Trump a discount based on the value of his collateral and available liquidity. It turned out he lied about that, his loan was a lot riskier than he told the banks it was and should have been charged higher interest. NY is making him pay back the discount that he lied about qualifying for. Habba did not dispute the expert testimony, nor the bank’s testimony, nor the number they came up with. This is all settled.
Also your faux outrage at “lawfare”, even when it’s simple enforcement of regular laws, rings hollow when you’re stanning for the “lock her up” guy. There is one side that campaigns on a promise to commit lawfare and it’s yours. They’re also convicted criminals and so they’re being prosecuted as such. Not for their political beliefs but because defrauding lenders with fraudulent financial statements is, simply put, a crime. If Trump wasn’t a criminal then there wouldn’t be quite so many crimes that he openly confessed to having committed. The best way avoid prosecution for defrauding lenders with fabricated financial statements was is not to commit that specific crime. I have read a bit and I even quoted some of it to you, from lawyers not CPAs why may have a different perspective. But like I said, it might even be, in the abstract, illegal activity. But I'm not gullible or disingenuous enough to believe this is just regular law enforcement. This ties in to what I said a few days ago, Trump said lots of things but did he actually lock up Hillary for her "extreme carelessness"? No! But this administration actually is going after their opponents. And lawfare is not new, one example that comes to mind is former gov of VA Bob McDonnell who scared dems so much the feds went after him on a ludicrous bribery charge they ended up getting reversed by the supreme court 9-0. By the way you know who was a prosecutor on that case? Jack Smith. Pretty sure that's not the only time he's had a higher court undo his work either. So no, I'm going to say the side doing it worse than the side threatening it (which I always said was something that worries me). But you and many others are incapable of seeing this as anything besides "stanning" so I guess we are just well and truly screwed. “It might be illegal”? Manufacturing fraudulent financial statements to obtain loans is definitely illegal. The fact that they successfully prosecuted him for the crime might be a clue there. Hillary escaped Trump’s lawfare by virtue of being innocent. I took a look at the Bob McDonnell case and it seems pretty cut and dry that he did it. A businessman gave him and his family a series of extremely expensive gifts and McDonnell gave that businessman government contracts that would not normally have been given. The way to avoid the appearance of impropriety in these situations is to not accept lavish gifts from people lobbying you. Failing that you should disclose the gifts and conflict and be recused out of any decision relating to them. He failed to do that, he took the money and he gave the contract. That wouldn’t be allowed in my profession, I can’t consider bids while taking kickbacks and if I received “gifts” I would be required to not be on the selection committee. Also I’m not going to worry too much about what SCOTUS think is bribery given the last few years of disclosure about Thomas being on the payroll of billionaire neo-Nazis. My current and past two roles I was told to not accept any gifts and have to report (long and painfully) anything over 100 dollars. Accepting free lunch is about the most and that is even frowned on. It’s a basic and pretty universally applied code of conduct that all of us are expected to follow. Literally every company has a gifts policy and every employee is subject to it. Introvert will be familiar with this from his personal life, he will have sat through this PowerPoint before.
If you take the money, cash the check, don’t disclose the conflict, don’t recuse yourself, sit on the committee, and make the decision that favours your benefactor, you’re going to get fired. Even if the memo on the check didn’t specify “bribe”. You either took a bribe or you acted with such reckless disregard for the code of conduct that you’re being let go for grossly unprofessional behaviour.
We all have had to watch that PowerPoint presentation many times. We’re all subject to it. But once it’s a Republican politician involved he’s fine with one rule for everyone else and another rule for them.
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Northern Ireland20731 Posts
I mean it feels a very circular line of argumentation, there’s shades of COVID about it.
COVID was made a political and cultural hot potato and the other side of the ledger also subsequently did draw lines on that basis.
Likewise ‘I don’t really care about potentially worrying legalistic precedent’, which absolutely is a thing IMO and in isolation a worrying development, but is largely given form as a response to ‘Trump should be able to break the law with impunity’.
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On March 26 2024 23:58 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2024 23:29 JimmiC wrote:On March 26 2024 23:06 KwarK wrote:On March 26 2024 22:21 Introvert wrote:On March 26 2024 14:15 KwarK wrote: The lenders testified that they relied upon his financials when offering the loan. This has all been litigated and settled. I’m not sure you’re really making an effort to be informed about it. The “fine” is literally just paying back his ill gotten gains, that’s it. The banks gave Trump a discount based on the value of his collateral and available liquidity. It turned out he lied about that, his loan was a lot riskier than he told the banks it was and should have been charged higher interest. NY is making him pay back the discount that he lied about qualifying for. Habba did not dispute the expert testimony, nor the bank’s testimony, nor the number they came up with. This is all settled.
Also your faux outrage at “lawfare”, even when it’s simple enforcement of regular laws, rings hollow when you’re stanning for the “lock her up” guy. There is one side that campaigns on a promise to commit lawfare and it’s yours. They’re also convicted criminals and so they’re being prosecuted as such. Not for their political beliefs but because defrauding lenders with fraudulent financial statements is, simply put, a crime. If Trump wasn’t a criminal then there wouldn’t be quite so many crimes that he openly confessed to having committed. The best way avoid prosecution for defrauding lenders with fabricated financial statements was is not to commit that specific crime. I have read a bit and I even quoted some of it to you, from lawyers not CPAs why may have a different perspective. But like I said, it might even be, in the abstract, illegal activity. But I'm not gullible or disingenuous enough to believe this is just regular law enforcement. This ties in to what I said a few days ago, Trump said lots of things but did he actually lock up Hillary for her "extreme carelessness"? No! But this administration actually is going after their opponents. And lawfare is not new, one example that comes to mind is former gov of VA Bob McDonnell who scared dems so much the feds went after him on a ludicrous bribery charge they ended up getting reversed by the supreme court 9-0. By the way you know who was a prosecutor on that case? Jack Smith. Pretty sure that's not the only time he's had a higher court undo his work either. So no, I'm going to say the side doing it worse than the side threatening it (which I always said was something that worries me). But you and many others are incapable of seeing this as anything besides "stanning" so I guess we are just well and truly screwed. “It might be illegal”? Manufacturing fraudulent financial statements to obtain loans is definitely illegal. The fact that they successfully prosecuted him for the crime might be a clue there. Hillary escaped Trump’s lawfare by virtue of being innocent. I took a look at the Bob McDonnell case and it seems pretty cut and dry that he did it. A businessman gave him and his family a series of extremely expensive gifts and McDonnell gave that businessman government contracts that would not normally have been given. The way to avoid the appearance of impropriety in these situations is to not accept lavish gifts from people lobbying you. Failing that you should disclose the gifts and conflict and be recused out of any decision relating to them. He failed to do that, he took the money and he gave the contract. That wouldn’t be allowed in my profession, I can’t consider bids while taking kickbacks and if I received “gifts” I would be required to not be on the selection committee. Also I’m not going to worry too much about what SCOTUS think is bribery given the last few years of disclosure about Thomas being on the payroll of billionaire neo-Nazis. My current and past two roles I was told to not accept any gifts and have to report (long and painfully) anything over 100 dollars. Accepting free lunch is about the most and that is even frowned on. It’s a basic and pretty universally applied code of conduct that all of us are expected to follow. Literally every company has a gifts policy and every employee is subject to it. Introvert will be familiar with this from his personal life, he will have sat through this PowerPoint before. If you take the money, cash the check, don’t disclose the conflict, don’t recuse yourself, sit on the committee, and make the decision that favours your benefactor, you’re going to get fired. Even if the memo on the check didn’t specify “bribe”. You either took a bribe or you acted with such reckless disregard for the code of conduct that you’re being let go for grossly unprofessional behaviour. We all have had to watch that PowerPoint presentation many times. We’re all subject to it. But once it’s a Republican politician involved he’s fine with one rule for everyone else and another rule for them. It should be a bipartisan issue as well. Corruption makes it more expensive for everyone, I mean you have to be awfully corrupt to have it personally benefit you more than it costs. That being said, so should taxing the ultra rich.
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On March 26 2024 22:21 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2024 14:15 KwarK wrote: The lenders testified that they relied upon his financials when offering the loan. This has all been litigated and settled. I’m not sure you’re really making an effort to be informed about it. The “fine” is literally just paying back his ill gotten gains, that’s it. The banks gave Trump a discount based on the value of his collateral and available liquidity. It turned out he lied about that, his loan was a lot riskier than he told the banks it was and should have been charged higher interest. NY is making him pay back the discount that he lied about qualifying for. Habba did not dispute the expert testimony, nor the bank’s testimony, nor the number they came up with. This is all settled.
Also your faux outrage at “lawfare”, even when it’s simple enforcement of regular laws, rings hollow when you’re stanning for the “lock her up” guy. There is one side that campaigns on a promise to commit lawfare and it’s yours. They’re also convicted criminals and so they’re being prosecuted as such. Not for their political beliefs but because defrauding lenders with fraudulent financial statements is, simply put, a crime. If Trump wasn’t a criminal then there wouldn’t be quite so many crimes that he openly confessed to having committed. The best way avoid prosecution for defrauding lenders with fabricated financial statements was is not to commit that specific crime. I have read a bit and I even quoted some of it to you, from lawyers not CPAs why may have a different perspective. But like I said, it might even be, in the abstract, illegal activity. But I'm not gullible or disingenuous enough to believe this is just regular law enforcement. This ties in to what I said a few days ago, Trump said lots of things but did he actually lock up Hillary for her "extreme carelessness"? No! But this administration actually is going after their opponents. And lawfare is not new, one example that comes to mind is former gov of VA Bob McDonnell who scared dems so much the feds went after him on a ludicrous bribery charge they ended up getting reversed by the supreme court 9-0. By the way you know who was a prosecutor on that case? Jack Smith. Pretty sure that's not the only time he's had a higher court undo his work either. So no, I'm going to say the side doing it worse than the side threatening it (which I always said was something that worries me). But you and many others are incapable of seeing this as anything besides "stanning" so I guess we are just well and truly screwed. nothing about this financial fraud is 'abstract'. he simply lied.
But regardless of that the "no one else gets charged for this" defence will do you no good here. Because I feel very confident in saying that everyone in this discussion would simply respond with "so lets charge everyone who does this aswell" rather then "ok, so lets let Trump go".
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Huh? Can somebody tell me why this "conflict of interest" thing is considered bad? I mean, getting more money can only be a good thing, right?
I maybe had only one lecture on it that was taught by a lawyer during 2nd year, but don't remember much about it. I guess some of my former colleagues didn't either as they were going to conferences sponsored by big pharma, which sounded more like paid vacations the more I hear them getting into the details about them. If they started pushing certain drugs onto their patients after said conference, it must be because those drugs were shown to be better, and not due to anything else, right? Right?
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Pretty sure Trump pulled way ahead on who is the candidate that is aging worse. Check out these quotes, and I goto say he does look feeble and confused. This is one speech by the way.
The former president insisted that “you can’t have an election in the middle of a political season.”
The former president added: “We just had Super Tuesday, and we had a Tuesday after Tuesday already.”
Trump also vowed to “bring crime back to law and order.”
Biden's campaign on the embarassment.
“He spent the weekend golfing, the morning comparing himself to Jesus, and the afternoon lying about having money he definitely doesn’t have,” the statement said.
“His campaign can’t raise money, he is uninterested in campaigning outside his country club, and every time he opens his mouth, he pushes moderate and suburban voters away with his dangerous agenda,” the campaign said in a statement. “America deserves better than a feeble, confused, and tired Donald Trump.”
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1772311788849156532?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1772313598108336401|twgr^02326bc09192297ea3a46f0a8a4c69b1868692fd|twcon^s3_&ref_url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-feeble-gaffes_n_660263bde4b0269c5d2d12ac
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1772311116288348216?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1772371095087169730|twgr^02326bc09192297ea3a46f0a8a4c69b1868692fd|twcon^s3_&ref_url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-feeble-gaffes_n_660263bde4b0269c5d2d12ac
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On March 26 2024 23:06 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2024 22:21 Introvert wrote:On March 26 2024 14:15 KwarK wrote: The lenders testified that they relied upon his financials when offering the loan. This has all been litigated and settled. I’m not sure you’re really making an effort to be informed about it. The “fine” is literally just paying back his ill gotten gains, that’s it. The banks gave Trump a discount based on the value of his collateral and available liquidity. It turned out he lied about that, his loan was a lot riskier than he told the banks it was and should have been charged higher interest. NY is making him pay back the discount that he lied about qualifying for. Habba did not dispute the expert testimony, nor the bank’s testimony, nor the number they came up with. This is all settled.
Also your faux outrage at “lawfare”, even when it’s simple enforcement of regular laws, rings hollow when you’re stanning for the “lock her up” guy. There is one side that campaigns on a promise to commit lawfare and it’s yours. They’re also convicted criminals and so they’re being prosecuted as such. Not for their political beliefs but because defrauding lenders with fraudulent financial statements is, simply put, a crime. If Trump wasn’t a criminal then there wouldn’t be quite so many crimes that he openly confessed to having committed. The best way avoid prosecution for defrauding lenders with fabricated financial statements was is not to commit that specific crime. I have read a bit and I even quoted some of it to you, from lawyers not CPAs why may have a different perspective. But like I said, it might even be, in the abstract, illegal activity. But I'm not gullible or disingenuous enough to believe this is just regular law enforcement. This ties in to what I said a few days ago, Trump said lots of things but did he actually lock up Hillary for her "extreme carelessness"? No! But this administration actually is going after their opponents. And lawfare is not new, one example that comes to mind is former gov of VA Bob McDonnell who scared dems so much the feds went after him on a ludicrous bribery charge they ended up getting reversed by the supreme court 9-0. By the way you know who was a prosecutor on that case? Jack Smith. Pretty sure that's not the only time he's had a higher court undo his work either. So no, I'm going to say the side doing it worse than the side threatening it (which I always said was something that worries me). But you and many others are incapable of seeing this as anything besides "stanning" so I guess we are just well and truly screwed. “It might be illegal”? Manufacturing fraudulent financial statements to obtain loans is definitely illegal. The fact that they successfully prosecuted him for the crime might be a clue there. Hillary escaped Trump’s lawfare by virtue of being innocent. I took a look at the Bob McDonnell case and it seems pretty cut and dry that he did it. A businessman gave him and his family a series of extremely expensive gifts and McDonnell gave that businessman government contracts that would not normally have been given. The way to avoid the appearance of impropriety in these situations is to not accept lavish gifts from people lobbying you. Failing that you should disclose the gifts and conflict and be recused out of any decision relating to them. He failed to do that, he took the money and he gave the contract. That wouldn’t be allowed in my profession, I can’t consider bids while taking kickbacks and if I received “gifts” I would be required to not be on the selection committee. Also I’m not going to worry too much about what SCOTUS think is bribery given the last few years of disclosure about Thomas being on the payroll of billionaire neo-Nazis.
Yes, the I know better argument. Twice in one chain! The court was 4-4 at that time btw, that dismissal you give really is stretch and I think we can all see that.
***
I've gotten a few responses so as a quick follow up here.
First I dispute, for the record, Hillary's innocence and Comey's word games.
But moreover, I'm not on the Trump train or stanning for him or anything like that. I dont have any plans to vote for him this time either. But I am concerned about letting ravenous hatred cause us to go further down the slippery slope. We can all pretend that these Trump cases are a new beginning of holding the powerful accountable, but I see no reason to believe that. Use whatever excuse you want, but don't whine when the next GOP president, maybe it will even be Trump!, turns the tables.
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Northern Ireland20731 Posts
On March 27 2024 01:42 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2024 23:06 KwarK wrote:On March 26 2024 22:21 Introvert wrote:On March 26 2024 14:15 KwarK wrote: The lenders testified that they relied upon his financials when offering the loan. This has all been litigated and settled. I’m not sure you’re really making an effort to be informed about it. The “fine” is literally just paying back his ill gotten gains, that’s it. The banks gave Trump a discount based on the value of his collateral and available liquidity. It turned out he lied about that, his loan was a lot riskier than he told the banks it was and should have been charged higher interest. NY is making him pay back the discount that he lied about qualifying for. Habba did not dispute the expert testimony, nor the bank’s testimony, nor the number they came up with. This is all settled.
Also your faux outrage at “lawfare”, even when it’s simple enforcement of regular laws, rings hollow when you’re stanning for the “lock her up” guy. There is one side that campaigns on a promise to commit lawfare and it’s yours. They’re also convicted criminals and so they’re being prosecuted as such. Not for their political beliefs but because defrauding lenders with fraudulent financial statements is, simply put, a crime. If Trump wasn’t a criminal then there wouldn’t be quite so many crimes that he openly confessed to having committed. The best way avoid prosecution for defrauding lenders with fabricated financial statements was is not to commit that specific crime. I have read a bit and I even quoted some of it to you, from lawyers not CPAs why may have a different perspective. But like I said, it might even be, in the abstract, illegal activity. But I'm not gullible or disingenuous enough to believe this is just regular law enforcement. This ties in to what I said a few days ago, Trump said lots of things but did he actually lock up Hillary for her "extreme carelessness"? No! But this administration actually is going after their opponents. And lawfare is not new, one example that comes to mind is former gov of VA Bob McDonnell who scared dems so much the feds went after him on a ludicrous bribery charge they ended up getting reversed by the supreme court 9-0. By the way you know who was a prosecutor on that case? Jack Smith. Pretty sure that's not the only time he's had a higher court undo his work either. So no, I'm going to say the side doing it worse than the side threatening it (which I always said was something that worries me). But you and many others are incapable of seeing this as anything besides "stanning" so I guess we are just well and truly screwed. “It might be illegal”? Manufacturing fraudulent financial statements to obtain loans is definitely illegal. The fact that they successfully prosecuted him for the crime might be a clue there. Hillary escaped Trump’s lawfare by virtue of being innocent. I took a look at the Bob McDonnell case and it seems pretty cut and dry that he did it. A businessman gave him and his family a series of extremely expensive gifts and McDonnell gave that businessman government contracts that would not normally have been given. The way to avoid the appearance of impropriety in these situations is to not accept lavish gifts from people lobbying you. Failing that you should disclose the gifts and conflict and be recused out of any decision relating to them. He failed to do that, he took the money and he gave the contract. That wouldn’t be allowed in my profession, I can’t consider bids while taking kickbacks and if I received “gifts” I would be required to not be on the selection committee. Also I’m not going to worry too much about what SCOTUS think is bribery given the last few years of disclosure about Thomas being on the payroll of billionaire neo-Nazis. Yes, the I know better argument. Twice in one chain! The court was 4-4 at that time btw, that dismissal you give really is stretch and I think we can all see that. *** I've gotten a few responses so as a quick follow up here. First I dispute, for the record, Hillary's innocence and Comey's word games. But moreover, I'm not on the Trump train or stanning for him or anything like that. I dont have any plans to vote for him this time either. But I am concerned about letting ravenous hatred cause us to go further down the slippery slope. We can all pretend that these Trump cases are a new beginning of holding the powerful accountable, but I see no reason to believe that. Use whatever excuse you want, but don't whine when the next GOP president, maybe it will even be Trump!, turns the tables. Turn the tables to do what? Prosecute criminals for doing criminal things?
Oh noes, what an outrage that would be!
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On March 27 2024 01:42 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2024 23:06 KwarK wrote:On March 26 2024 22:21 Introvert wrote:On March 26 2024 14:15 KwarK wrote: The lenders testified that they relied upon his financials when offering the loan. This has all been litigated and settled. I’m not sure you’re really making an effort to be informed about it. The “fine” is literally just paying back his ill gotten gains, that’s it. The banks gave Trump a discount based on the value of his collateral and available liquidity. It turned out he lied about that, his loan was a lot riskier than he told the banks it was and should have been charged higher interest. NY is making him pay back the discount that he lied about qualifying for. Habba did not dispute the expert testimony, nor the bank’s testimony, nor the number they came up with. This is all settled.
Also your faux outrage at “lawfare”, even when it’s simple enforcement of regular laws, rings hollow when you’re stanning for the “lock her up” guy. There is one side that campaigns on a promise to commit lawfare and it’s yours. They’re also convicted criminals and so they’re being prosecuted as such. Not for their political beliefs but because defrauding lenders with fraudulent financial statements is, simply put, a crime. If Trump wasn’t a criminal then there wouldn’t be quite so many crimes that he openly confessed to having committed. The best way avoid prosecution for defrauding lenders with fabricated financial statements was is not to commit that specific crime. I have read a bit and I even quoted some of it to you, from lawyers not CPAs why may have a different perspective. But like I said, it might even be, in the abstract, illegal activity. But I'm not gullible or disingenuous enough to believe this is just regular law enforcement. This ties in to what I said a few days ago, Trump said lots of things but did he actually lock up Hillary for her "extreme carelessness"? No! But this administration actually is going after their opponents. And lawfare is not new, one example that comes to mind is former gov of VA Bob McDonnell who scared dems so much the feds went after him on a ludicrous bribery charge they ended up getting reversed by the supreme court 9-0. By the way you know who was a prosecutor on that case? Jack Smith. Pretty sure that's not the only time he's had a higher court undo his work either. So no, I'm going to say the side doing it worse than the side threatening it (which I always said was something that worries me). But you and many others are incapable of seeing this as anything besides "stanning" so I guess we are just well and truly screwed. “It might be illegal”? Manufacturing fraudulent financial statements to obtain loans is definitely illegal. The fact that they successfully prosecuted him for the crime might be a clue there. Hillary escaped Trump’s lawfare by virtue of being innocent. I took a look at the Bob McDonnell case and it seems pretty cut and dry that he did it. A businessman gave him and his family a series of extremely expensive gifts and McDonnell gave that businessman government contracts that would not normally have been given. The way to avoid the appearance of impropriety in these situations is to not accept lavish gifts from people lobbying you. Failing that you should disclose the gifts and conflict and be recused out of any decision relating to them. He failed to do that, he took the money and he gave the contract. That wouldn’t be allowed in my profession, I can’t consider bids while taking kickbacks and if I received “gifts” I would be required to not be on the selection committee. Also I’m not going to worry too much about what SCOTUS think is bribery given the last few years of disclosure about Thomas being on the payroll of billionaire neo-Nazis. Yes, the I know better argument. Twice in one chain! The court was 4-4 at that time btw, that dismissal you give really is stretch and I think we can all see that. *** I've gotten a few responses so as a quick follow up here. First I dispute, for the record, Hillary's innocence and Comey's word games.But moreover, I'm not on the Trump train or stanning for him or anything like that. I dont have any plans to vote for him this time either. But I am concerned about letting ravenous hatred cause us to go further down the slippery slope. We can all pretend that these Trump cases are a new beginning of holding the powerful accountable, but I see no reason to believe that. Use whatever excuse you want, but don't whine when the next GOP president, maybe it will even be Trump!, turns the tables.
Less than a paragraph later.
Will you admit that committing fraud to secure loans is a crime?
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I read Intro as it is a crime, but one that is not normally prosecuted. Which I agree with.
Where I think we differ is I think it should be prosecuted for all, but especially those in positions of power like president who should be held to the highest of all standards.
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Having an attitude of "Fraud is fine as long as it works out" Is a pretty wild idea for a financial system. Confirming the cost benefit analysis of "is it worth it to sue?" to actually prosecuting crime is not the way to hold a society together, rich people actually being held accountable to some set of laws is a popular concept.
If intro thinks that the republicans will only now start to use the law to attack their political enemies just wait until he finds out about the war on drugs.
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United States40776 Posts
It didn’t work out. Remember, the “fine” is just the amount that he would have had to pay if he was charged full price. He can’t afford to pay that fine and so the only reason he was able to pay the interest is that he fraudulently secured lower interest. He failed to meet the real terms.
Imagine a store that has veteran discounts. Trump walks in, grabs an item that costs $100, fraudulently claims to be a veteran to get a 20% discount, and pays $80. Prosecution establish that he’s not a veteran because he’s not. He defends himself saying that the store only charged him $80 and he paid $80 so what’s the crime.
His only punishment is to pay back the $20 discount he fraudulently obtained. But it turns out that he can’t do that, he doesn’t have $20, he never had $100 for the item to begin with. He walked into the store knowing that he only had $80, knowing that the item was $100, and knowing that he wasn’t a veteran.
It didn’t all work out. He stole from them. Until he coughs up the extra $20, and apparently he can’t do that, he has failed to hold up his end of the bargain. Stealing from someone with fraudulent representations is still stealing. “Just pay back what you took” is the unimaginably cruel and unusual punishment handed out by the New York judge and conservatives are up in arms at this miscarriage of justice. It’s baffling.
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United States40776 Posts
On March 27 2024 02:10 JimmiC wrote: I read Intro as it is a crime, but one that is not normally prosecuted. Which I agree with.
Where I think we differ is I think it should be prosecuted for all, but especially those in positions of power like president who should be held to the highest of all standards. It’s not normally committed. The average businessman in the normal course of business does not fabricate financial statements. This idea that everyone does it but only Trump got charged is nonsense. Most people aren’t charged with the crime because most people didn’t commit the crime. Trump is being singled out because he committed a crime. It is absolutely not standard practice to defraud your lenders.
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On March 27 2024 03:19 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2024 02:10 JimmiC wrote: I read Intro as it is a crime, but one that is not normally prosecuted. Which I agree with.
Where I think we differ is I think it should be prosecuted for all, but especially those in positions of power like president who should be held to the highest of all standards. It’s not normally committed. The average businessman in the normal course of business does not fabricate financial statements. This idea that everyone does it but only Trump got charged is nonsense. Most people aren’t charged with the crime because most people didn’t commit the crime. Trump is being singled out because he committed a crime. It is absolutely not standard practice to defraud your lenders. I’m with you on it not being wide spread. I meant that the few times it happens it is not prosecuted often because it is not looked into. For the most part everyone trusts the financial statements and really they only get dug into when something goes wrong. Your Madoff example is one such case. There could be no others, or there could be some but the reality is it is too expensive and time consuming to check all of them. Maybe it would be worth looking into, or maybe if the work from home thing really takes off then more of it will come out as these commercial real estate deals will all the sudden have negative equity and the lenders will come looking for the security.
It reminds me a little of the mortgage crisis where many small (and even large) lenders basically didn’t care who they were giving the money too because if the payments stopped coming in then they could just sell the house for more, or refinance and kick the can down the road. We may enter a time where we find out how many Trumps there are out there.
Heck he might put the crime back in law and order after all.
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I'm mostly on Intro's side; most of the cases against Trump that I have read about seem very weak and clearly politically motivated. When Trump's opponents are asked about them, they typically revert to non-answers such as "but look there are 97 other lawsuits".
BUT what baffles is why it is not a bigger deal that Trump tried to change the result of the 2020 election. How can it not be a serious crime to try to pressure government officials into changing the result of an election?
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On March 27 2024 06:51 Elroi wrote: I'm mostly on Intro's side; most of the cases against Trump that I have read about seem very weak and clearly politically motivated. When Trump's opponents are asked about them, they typically revert to non-answers such as "but look there are 97 other lawsuits".
BUT what baffles is why it is not a bigger deal that Trump tried to change the result of the 2020 election. How can it not be a serious crime to try to pressure government officials into changing the result of an election?
Which of the cases do you think are weak, and why? Classified documents? Hush money? Aren't the other 2 of the 4 huge cases - federal election interference and Georgia election interference - precisely in regards to the big deal that Trump tried to change the result of the 2020 election? Do you think those two cases are weak too?
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United States40776 Posts
On March 27 2024 06:51 Elroi wrote: I'm mostly on Intro's side; most of the cases against Trump that I have read about seem very weak and clearly politically motivated. When Trump's opponents are asked about them, they typically revert to non-answers such as "but look there are 97 other lawsuits".
BUT what baffles is why it is not a bigger deal that Trump tried to change the result of the 2020 election. How can it not be a serious crime to try to pressure government officials into changing the result of an election? Fabricated financial statements to fraudulently obtain loans is a big deal. The case isn’t weak, it’s over, he did it, that was proved in court. He didn’t even deny it, his defence was that he should be allowed to do fraud because the disclaimer on the financials shifted all the responsibility for fraud to some guy called Donald Trump.
Are you just not making any attempt to stay informed? I don’t get how you could look at this stuff and think “weak case” when he confessed.
The cases against him are generally proven. They’re not politically motivated, Trump benefits from the desire to avoid the appearance of politically motivated prosecution so they try very hard not to prosecute him. They’re not weak cases, they’re proven cases. If anyone but Trump had pulled the shit he pulled with the documents where he directed his staff to lie to the FBI they’d be in supermax. There’s a recording of Trump confessing to that one too. He explains in the recording that as president he had the authority to declassify docs but that he didn’t do so which means now it’s illegal for him to have the documents and to show them to people. Then he deliberately illegally shows a classified document to someone to authorized to see it in order to prove his point about it being illegal.
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On March 27 2024 03:16 KwarK wrote: It didn’t work out. Remember, the “fine” is just the amount that he would have had to pay if he was charged full price. He can’t afford to pay that fine and so the only reason he was able to pay the interest is that he fraudulently secured lower interest. He failed to meet the real terms.
Imagine a store that has veteran discounts. Trump walks in, grabs an item that costs $100, fraudulently claims to be a veteran to get a 20% discount, and pays $80. Prosecution establish that he’s not a veteran because he’s not. He defends himself saying that the store only charged him $80 and he paid $80 so what’s the crime.
His only punishment is to pay back the $20 discount he fraudulently obtained. But it turns out that he can’t do that, he doesn’t have $20, he never had $100 for the item to begin with. He walked into the store knowing that he only had $80, knowing that the item was $100, and knowing that he wasn’t a veteran.
It didn’t all work out. He stole from them. Until he coughs up the extra $20, and apparently he can’t do that, he has failed to hold up his end of the bargain. Stealing from someone with fraudulent representations is still stealing. “Just pay back what you took” is the unimaginably cruel and unusual punishment handed out by the New York judge and conservatives are up in arms at this miscarriage of justice. It’s baffling.
Inaccurate. I believe less than half the judgement is the unpaid interest from favorable rates. They’re also fining him from windfall profits. Perhaps a better analogy would be getting a veteran discount and paying $80 for a $100 item and then selling that item for $150 and after it’s discovered you are not a veteran you are forced to pay back $70. $20 for the veteran discount and another $50 in profit from selling the item.
All in all, these Trump prosecutions are going terribly for the Dems. For the NY civil case - it’s hard to find anyone whose heart is going to bleed for Deustche bank because they may have missed out on some interest for being dumb enough to take Trump of all people at his word. I think next up is the Stormy Daniels case which I’ve posted earlier even Vox considers to be based on an untested novel legal theory. Deploying novel legal theory to prosecute Trump makes it all to easy to beat the “Get Trump” drum. Not a good look. Then you have the Georgia election interference case where the lead prosecutor hired the guy she was banging as an investigator who in turn took her out on lavish vacations to tropical paradises. I guess she missed the PowerPoints Kwark talked about.
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I wonder if Trump signed a personal gaurantee on any of his loans?
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United States40776 Posts
On March 27 2024 08:56 BlackJack wrote: Then you have the Georgia election interference case where the lead prosecutor hired the guy she was banging as an investigator who in turn took her out on lavish vacations to tropical paradises. I guess she missed the PowerPoints Kwark talked about.
She hired a guy she was banging as one of four contract positions.
It has been proven with contemporaneous documents that he wasn’t her first choice for the job and that he only got it after some other guy who she wasn’t banging turned the job down.
The position he was hired for wasn’t investigator.
He got the same rate as others ($250/hr which was actually a significant pay cut for him) and was subject to a maximum billable hours cap like the others. No approvals were given to him to go over that.
He was qualified for the job.
There were no lavish vacations. $3,000 vacations for a high profile lawyer aren’t outlandish.
Trump lost that case too.
That’s not to say that she shouldn’t have disclosed the conflict and that he shouldn’t have been dismissed. She absolutely failed to follow that PowerPoint and he perjured himself a few times. Not defending them, seriously bad judgment plus his perjury ought to be disqualifying for a lawyer. I’d hope for someone to run against her on the basis of her shitty judgment.
But it’s pretty apparent that you have absolutely no understanding of any of the facts of that case, from the very basic stuff like what his job title was to the circumstances of how he was hired.
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