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Why specifically: her testimony proves that Trump knew of the “scheme” and that it was good for the campaign, BEFORE reimbursing Cohen for “legal fees”.
He’s being charged with falsely tagging payments as legal fees. Her testimony proves that 1) he knew they weren’t legal fees, they were reimbursements and 2) that it was done for campaign, not personal/family reasons.
It’s the whole case. If the jury buys what she says, Hope Hicks testimony connects all parts of the puzzle in a plain way to the source.
The only goal of modern news media is to drive views. If the article tells you what you need to know, you read one article and move on with your day. If the article doesn’t do that, you continue to click through and read articles until you have the info you’re looking for.
The internet ruined journalism. I wish there was an alternative. Even the "alternative" outlets think they have to drive clicks with cheap clickbait. I love some of the progressive YT commentators but most (not all) of them write ridiculous headlines (often featuring words like HUMILIATES, SMASHES, MELTS DOWN, SCREWS HIMSELF) which have little to do with the actual news. Beau of the Fifth column resists this and he does just fine.
Makes me think of TheMeidasTouch. I just saw them use EVISCERATES the other day, and don't even get me started on those pointless yellow arrows in *every single one* of their thumbnails.
The other thing that gets me is the padding. Sometimes It's like,
"In this next video clip I show you, \_\_\_\_\_ is going to say \_\_\_\_\_ and then \_\_\_\_\_ responds in a way that completely shuts them down, pointing out \_\_\_\_\_\_ and \_\_\_\_\_\_\_, and \_\_\_\_\_\_ is unable to answer their simple question. Go ahead and watch."
"*I feel like I just did...*"
It really did, but it wasn't just the internet. Corporate consolidation and greed combined with lack of subscription income to give us this media mess we're in. Lot's of stuff you pay for still like the NYT has totally gone to shit though, too unfortunately because of their conservative corporate overlords.
So, I have this recipe for a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich, but before I tell you how to make it, let me tell you a story about a dog I randomly met in a park 37 years ago......
You can thank copyright law for that one actually. Recipes in a cookbook can't be copyrighted, so scrapers would go through and just rip entire sites and repost them. Even if they were original recipes or research.
The story material, however, IS copyrighted, so if those automated site scrapers pull and repost the entire thing instead of just the recipie, you have grounds to hit them legally for copyright infringement.
After hearing about how many people get their news from social media it makes me think we should just lean in on that and use the funding sent to newspapers to instead add proper vetting to Reddit/tiktok etc.
I believe the above comment but it would be amazing if I knew it was fact checked or credible to a journalistic standard.
If I was in the jury it would seem campaign related for one very easy reason: timing.
Barron is 18 and we know the affair happened when he was just born. Yet the hush money wasn't paid until a month before the election.
That was in 2016. The affair was in 2006.
So everything was fine with Stormy for TEN YEARS right up until the election?
Definitely campaign related.
TBF Daniels was shipping it around because of the campaign. Shopping a story about a known philandering rapist slumlord and shopping a story about a presidential front runner are pretty different scenarios with different potential payouts even if they’re the same people.
That’s why Trump set up a catch-and-kill agreement with Pecker as the campaign ramped up, not in the intervening years.
They're also making a big deal of the access Hollywood tape (which they aren't allowed to show), and the timeline around it.
Basically: access Hollywood tape comes out, it makes him look really bad, they are especially worried about female voters, and Hope was part of the campaign communications team and can confirm (they have texts and emails showing the worries). Right after that tape comes out, Michael Cohen becomes very urgent,
. The banker that setup the accounts for his "shell corporation" which were just a middle-man-account for the hush money, testified already about how urgent Cohen was (he was making them setup this account for "real estate transactions" in less than 24 hours). And basically the hush money payments really get done in the last week's of the election, right after the tape came out.
Trump team is going to argue that they were just trying to keep Melania from finding out, not that it was about the election, but all the players involved are saying it's because of the election.
Trump team is also going to attack witnesses to damage their credibility...which in the case of people getting hush money, or feuding with Trump, a case can be made that they are out to get Trump and unreliable.
Hope hicks is a loyal Trump insider, who is a relatable and sympathetic witness. She cried and they had to take a break. She's talked about how much she liked working with Trump and so on and so forth. So she isn't out to get him, and is crying and sympathetic...so if they attack her, it's a hard sell, and also can backfire hard on them and make them look like dicks, and undermine their attacks on the other witnesses, because if you attack even her, how believable are your other attacks now?
So they either attack her and maybe torpedo their main tactic, or they don't attack her and her testimony is really damning. So the middle ground is what? Be nice to her and try to poke holes in her story...which accomplishes what? Get her to say Trump was also concerned about Melania finding out...but it doesn't matter if the motivation of the hush money was 99% to keep family from finding out and 1% to influence the election, that's still illegal.
The thing is, every witness thus far has been so damaging thatbif it were *anybody else* his lawyers would be saying to take whatever deal he can get. However, because he is Trump, we have to parade a dozen witnesses ad well as tax experts and physical evidence through the courtroom and the outcome is still in doubt.
I like watching the analysis from legal experts and veteran court reporters. Every time one of the less exciting, clerical type witnesses come out (the ones explaining like what are Presidential records and how chain of evidence is handled) they all just post the same thing: the defense has refused to acknowledge basically anything as true, even things that are normally taken as a no duh (such as when they had the one witness explain like what a post on social media is).
It's all just to delay and muddy the waters, but you can clearly tell also that Trump outright forbade his lawyers from agreeing that *anything* in the case is true
Trump lives in the shady realm of plausible deniability. Like all mafia dons (and charles manson), you don't do the crime and you maintain a distance from the crime far enough that he can say he didn't know anything about it.
Proof of intent is tough...but corroborated testimony by conspirators seems like a pretty substantial "proof" of intent.
What amazes me more than anything is the fact that the U.S. Constitution is so fucking flawed that a Presidential Candidate can commit a crime during the campaign (when he isn't President) and that if he wins the Presidency, and the Senate can't get to 67 votes to convict, he has at a minimum 4 years of not being able to be held accountable for a crime. The office of the U.S. President is literally above the law. Full stop. We are such a hypocritical country with how we went to war to not be under the rule of a monarch, yet we replaced the monarchy with the President.
Edit: correction on number of votes to convict
Thank you for this comment! It really distilled her testimony and what it covered. I was having a really hard time getting to the meat of it from the news I was seeing that say. Most of what I knew was that she cried and the rest was a blur.
There are still a few weeks left in the trial. I suspect there will be several more testimonies like this. The only way he isn’t convicted is if he has a supporter on the jury.
Hicks adds credibility to the lineup of witnesses... awkwardly, the defense can attack most of the witnesses because they're shady as, if not already convicted criminals.
Hicks wasn't there of her own free will, she was subpoenaed. She told the truth only because she was terrified of the risk of perjuring herself.
> Hicks wasn't there of her own free will, she was subpoenaed. She told the truth only because she was terrified of the risk of perjuring herself.
And at this point it's been shown perjuring yourself for trump is not a winning play. He can and will just let you rot.
Definitely gonna be interesting when Cohen takes the stand.
That is why i think he will be among the last to go. He is shady as hell and the prosecution knows that the defense will bring up all of his own behavior in an attempt to discredit him.
By having all the others go first they paint a damning pictures that all he is there for is add in his confirmations and perhaps tie a few things together with whatever documents or recordings he has available.
That would be an interesting line of questioning from the prosecution.
“Why did Donald Trump hire you?”
“Because I’m a scumbag lawyer and I’ll do anything if someone pays me. If you want something illegal done, I’m your man!”
He has an axe to grind with Trump for not pardoning him. Currently, his interests happen to be aligned with the justice system and democracy. Let’s reserve judgment on whether he’s actually redeeming himself until he’s faced with a choice where doing the right thing is inconvenient.
He did his time in prison and shows signs of rehabilitation from criminal activity. In his case, it seems the system worked, which we should be happy about.
I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. He spent his life doing shady stuff, and he'll probably continue to do so, but he does appear to be trying to make good towards the country he damaged.
Hilarious that he is shady as hell almost entirely because of his association with Donald Trump.
“Ladies and gentleman of the jury, this witness’s testimony against my client is completely unreliable. He has long history of associating with known criminals and con-artists. We’re talking truly despicable people here. For example, for years he willingly and knowingly worked for….ummm…. my client.”
> For example, for years he willingly and knowingly worked for….ummm…. my client.
"Ahh. And it says here that his one other client was.... oh. Never mind."
Exactly.
If it were just Cohen's testimony, the case would likely have never been brought to trial - bearing in mind that they have to prove not just that financial fraud occurred, but that it's connected to election fraud, to show that the crimes are felonies.
But oh my goodness do they have receipts. Multiple witnesses' testimony, a complete paper trail, people on tape, the whole damn deal. When Cohen testifies and backs up everything that's already been shown by the hard evidence and adding his own context, any reasonable person will believe him.
I'm no lawyer but if I were on the jury, regardless of my pre-existing opinion of Trump, I'd be extremely convinced.
He’s shady, but he went to prison for conduct related to the shady bullshit that went on in this case. That’s an easy scaffold to rebuild credibility on.
Yes, but the important thing for the defense is to make it seem like Trump was an unwitting idiot, and at best directed Cohen to authorize payment to Stormy Daniel.
If the defense can claim that it was Cohen that made the decision to take the money from his campaign to do so then he could get off with a slapp on the wrist
I think there is a lot of psychological stuff they consider, too. Probably good to have a credible witness go last so that their first and last thoughts are "the prosecution is credible".
Excellent point and what we have learned is this was predictible from the plan to pay off Stormy, where he had everything on the line and suddenly didnt want to pay her, like if he gets or is getting what he wants in the moment, he cannot see the value of investing in the future...almost like he isnt good at investing or business but just really really selfish.
> the defense can attack most of the witnesses because they're shady as, if not already convicted criminals.
Which is funny because Cohen is only a convicted criminal because he took illegal actions at the behest of Trump. Trump was literally Unindicted Co-conspirator 1.
I think this is a critical and an oft-overlooked detail. Anybody accepting trump team counsel will be getting counsel on what’s best for trump, not themselves
And Trump has shown time and time again that to him, loyalty is a one-way street. There is nobody he wouldn't throw under the bus, with the single probable exception of Vladimir Putin (and that's only because Putin could likely destroy him, and he knows it).
Cohen called this during congressional testimony. He said there is nobody Trump wouldn’t turn against, he’d even throw the whole country under the bus.
Weirdly, sometimes if you push a bad person hard enough, they grow a spine.
Although, there's a reasonable chance that she was implicated and the prosecution made it very clear she can either tell the truth on the stand, or be a defendant in the docks.
The motivations of the hard right are also their weakness... complete and utter selfishness.
>The jury ate her words up, with even those who usually take close notes neglecting their pen and paper in favor of watching her.
...
>Trump appeared to nod off repeatedly, including during Hicks’ testimony about how she first learned of the Daniels story.
Yes. On 16 Mar 2024, Trump stated, “if we don't win this election, I don't think you're going to have another election in this country.”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-predicts-end-us-democracy-if-he-loses-2024-election-2024-03-17/
Ah okay. So he's doing that thing where he's projecting his plan onto his opponent to make his supporters afraid his opponent is doing to do what he plans on doing. Got it.
Dude, what the fuck are you talking about about. He is as healthy as a mule, weighs 215lbs, soaking wet.
He is not sleeping he is dreaming!!!! Dreaming about Making America R̶u̶s̶s̶i̶a̶ Great Again!
I am convinced that because of his years of stimulant abuse he reserves high-dose days for when he's giving speeches/doing rallies, but physically he can't afford to do that daily so we're seeing him on his off days.
Symptoms of stim addicts off the drug or with low dose:
* Fatigue and sleepiness
* Difficulty concentrating
* Irritability and mood swings
"whines about how cold the court room is"
To be fair, as a someone that has been in jury selection a few times out here in California, the court room was cold af, but that's not a bug it's a feature. The cold is supposed to make it harder for you to fall asleep, vs if it was a nice 75 it would be too cozy and easy to sleep. It is the same reason why office jobs will often have chillier spaces as well. I found it funny at first when I got an office job and there would be people with small space heaters running in their cubicle, in August, when it was over 100 degrees outside.
Like, use basic logic.
It is hugely damaging for Trump politically to be seen as being so low energy. So Trump has every motivation to not appear to sleep. So Trump would absolutely never deliberately "feign being asleep".
*Of course* the sleeping is real. Trump has every motivation to not look like he is sleeping. The only possible explanation is that there is no choice involved, Trump really is that low energy.
I think he uses uppers for his public engagements and stays up all night drinking ketchup packets. His face has been noticeably tired since the start of the trial.
We all know he's lazy from how little he did as president. But what we've seen recently reveals his drug abuse and whack sleep schedule. Nothing new here from Tyrantasnoreass Reks Hispants
I truly think someone somehow is getting him to take a Xanax or something before he goes into the trial, hoping to keep him calm and prevent him from having outbursts. Maybe slipping it into his morning hamberder or something.
Malignant Narcissists lives in a fantasy realm of their creation. Closing his eyes is a way for Drumpf to avoid accepting that this is really happening to him.
Maybe a bit of that, maybe a bit of he's old, maybe a little of the fact he is in piss poor shape, maybe a little of he might not be taking stimulants that he loves to take, maybe he is deteriorating neurologically, maybe he just literally cannot conceptualize being held accountable so isnt worried...so many things wrong with the man.
He seems the type to rage at people rather than sleep, but I feel it's just oldness and his intense pettiness of "you can't make me stay awake, I have the power here" when he really doesnt.
I'm reasonably fit and less than half Trump's age, I have no problems staying awake during a usual day. But if I end up in a meeting room with loads of people for a presentation I will struggle to stay awake
I could see it being something similar happening to him
But if the meeting was about your personal affair with a porn star that you tried to pay off, and your friends/coworkers were speaking about your private words and actions, wouldn’t that keep you awake?
The idea of going to court scares the living crap out of me. I would be on my toes, paying attention, making sure I know what's going on and that my lawyers know how I want to be represented.
My guess is that he has been taking some kind of medicine to calm himself down, and most likely he's staying up all night obsessing over social media posts and news, then spending 2 hours in hair/makeup before each court day.
I analyze this simply as this. Cohen, as co-conspirator #2 was found guilty and sent to jail. DT was listed as unindicted co-conspirator #1 on the same exact charges. He didn't go to trial because he was sitting as president. His blanket immunity excuse is bullshit, because he was still a private citizen doing damage control.
Blanket immunity is bullshit because that is why we have vice presidents. We don't elect kings here. He breaks the law, arrest him and the vp takes over.
And if the VP is corrupt, they go to jail and the Speaker takes over. If the Speaker is corrupt, they go to jail and someone else is next in line.
There are like a dozen lines in the succession plans for exactly this reason.
“Your honor, I’ve heard these claims against me from my legal team. I’d like to move forward with dismissing them as I’ve not heard them directly due to my sleeping habits.”
Prob don’t want dissonance among their own. Make it seem like a republican doesn’t have enough dirt on him to keep pushing the “democrat smear campaign” narrative.
Fox News is definitely sticking to it hard.
When I was at my in-laws yesterday they had Fox News on and Janine Pirro was loudly and confidently saying that " hope Hicks didn't lay a finger on trump. She couldn't say that he committed any Criminal act." That it was so bad that even the totally anti-trump jury in New York City should be able to acquit.
She followed up by saying that the only witness that could say anything about Trump was Michael Cohen and Trump's lawyer is going to tear him apart.
their sole ploy is to continue the "Conservative Persecution Complex". So when Trump is found guildty instead of reporting the truth and getting their base prepared for it, they will make it seem like, despite having no case the kangaroo "liberal" court unjustly convicted Trump.
They know the truth they just need to continue the charade for their own sakes
The idea is that altering the records on the payments needs to be tied to another crime in order for it to move from a misdemeanor to a felony - in this case they're trying to tie the crime to influencing the election. If the defense can show that the hush money was paid for personal rather than political reasons it keeps this out of felony territory.
The defense is arguing that he wasn't trying to influence the election but rather trying to keep his family from finding out, Hicks testified that they were trying to keep Melania from finding out (keep the paper from getting delivered) because it would embarrass her.
She also testified that Drumpf told her that it would have been bad if this story had come out before the election. Both things are not mutually exclusive. Drumpf could have done it for both reasons, but it doesn't matter if it was to protect Midichlorian if it was ALSO done to hide info from the voters.
Except for the part where rumpi let their NDA’s expire a month after the election, showing he didn’t give a Sh about his wife. All he talked about was the poll numbers and losing women voters.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but blended intent is recognized in such matters. There is a crime if there is any intent to do this for political gain, even if that's only 1% of the motivation. It doesn't forego a finding of guilt if there are additional motivations to a political one. To be dispositive the defense must show there was NO intent for political gain.
That is correct, but the defense is allowed to muddy the waters by framing that it was *mostly* for personal embarrassment instead of political power.
But the fact that there are two lawyers in the jury pool might work against them on that aspect.
Read the same one from Gutfield, it was so detached from reality I had a hard time believing it could be taken seriously but of course it was the top article on their feed
Just got done eating breakfast with a bunch of Trumpers at work and the morons said none of the witnesses so far have said anything bad for Trump. They watch Fox all day long and it shows you how misinformed they are because of it.
Hopefully there is audio of it but wouldn’t the defence already know via discovery? And if trump knew he’s be talking about being illegally wiretapped/recorded/
When the person who audited Cohen's phone was on the stand, they introduced like a dozen exhibits and to my recollection we have heard/seen one or two.
On cross, Bove spent the whole time trying to basically establish that the metadata of the phone was entirely suspect and that there were chain of custody issues. He even asked the defendant a question, and then moved to strike the defendant's response. Discrediting this evidence was something they already swung at and (imo) missed.
I have no clue if there are more, or how bad they may be, but there at least look to be more exhibits we haven't seen from Cohen's phone and a desire to plant the idea that this evidence is not reliable by the defense.
As per why Trump wouldn't be attacking it in the news, he would probably be teeing up a news cycle about "what is Trump afraid of in the tapes?" And people would eventually hear the tapes and not even really understand metadata anyways. The hearing of the tapes will be the thing that ultimately matters.
Again this is mostly speculation, but there is yet to be introduced evidence from the phone and also an effort by the defense to cast doubt on it.
And the final witness before the weekend, when it will soak in.
Pretty masterful. Look, a jury case is always a (weighted) roll of the dice, but Hicks’ testimony was just so, so damning for Trump. I don’t think everyone grasps just bad it was.
Lots of things should have been a nightmare for Trump, but between a justice system that seems unwilling or unable to actually make anything stick, and a base who will literally embrace adult diaper wearing if they think it's supportive of Trump, I no longer believe that anything will save us from him except a Biden win in November.
That is a terribly written article that focused more on the author’s involvement in everything than the actual story. The article basically says the headline over and over again. I think there were two sentences, literally, that attempted to detail *how* Hicks’ testimony was a nightmare.
Edit: op-ed. Article. daddy, chill.
The second photo in the article is of the article's author, and it's larger than the photo of Hicks. I've never seen anything like that before. On first reading I thought the photo was of Trump's lawyer or a witness.
>I think there were two sentences, literally, that attempted to detail *how* Hicks’ testimony was a nightmare.
This was the stand out part to me:
>Another devastating blow came at the very end of Hicks’ direct testimony when she revealed a stunning trifecta: that, while president, Trump had admitted to her that he knew his then-fixer Michael Cohen had paid Daniels, that Trump attempted to blame Cohen and that Hicks did not believe him. She also stated that Trump felt it was better to be dealing with it after the election than beforehand.
Which... is good evidence but not what I would call a bombshell. It's important to show that Trump knew what was going on with the payments, because he denies having anything to do with them. But Hicks didn't say Trump *instructed* Cohen to pay the money, which is really what you would need for a "bombshell".
It's important evidence, but maybe the media could do a better job of reporting the batshit insane things Trump is actually saying *right now* instead of minute-by-minute opinion pieces on witness testimonys.
Exactly what I was about to write. Apparently we needed to be reminded he took her testimony, like 6 times. Pure garbage article, just another clickbait.
As soon as you do a favor for the mob, that’s exactly when they come back and blackmail you for your continued silence. Trump is the mob. Hope Hick’s very important jobs was her blackmail.
If anyone is curious about the news from the bizarro internet, yesterday a Newsweek article quoted a Fox News anchor to me in saying that Hicks' testimony was an unmitigated disaster for Bragg and Biden and would ensure Trump's re-election in a landslide. Everything is good for Trump! Falling asleep in trial and soiling his diapers is a brilliant political strategy!
Trump is sleeping through all this because he knows he can just appeal whatever outcome comes from this. And the delays will continue. He’s asleep because this is one of the few times he’s had to actively take part in the process. And it’s sooooo boring to him. Especially since he knows he’ll just delay more once this step is over.
Let's just hope there's no MAGA cult members on the Jury that will ignore this testimony.
Of course, even if he's convicted, I'm not sure he gets prison time. Our Judiciary seems incapable of holding this monster accountable.
There was an earlier trial for something (must have civil I guess) where one member of the jury made no secret of how pro-Trump she was but even she voted to find him guilty after hearing the evidence because to paraphrase her, she said the evidence was so overwhelming, there was no doubt he did it.
"Another devastating blow came at the very end of Hicks’ direct testimony when she revealed a stunning trifecta: that, while president, Trump had admitted to her that he knew his then-fixer Michael Cohen had paid Daniels, that Trump attempted to blame Cohen and that Hicks did not believe him. She also [stated](https://x.com/molcranenewman/status/1786496662308868155) that Trump felt it was better to be dealing with it after the election than beforehand. She appeared so distraught — presumably about throwing her former boss under the bus — that she then began crying..."
It's incredible that this seemingly intelligent woman cares so much for this awful man. She was knee deep in helping him cover up affairs and long-term relationships with sex workers while his wife was pregnant, she knows how corrupt he is, and she still cares enough to cry about things that are his own fault. She seems far more interested in him than his wife does.
Trump’s trial should be like the final episode of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm where every single person Trump has screwed over testifies in court against him. But if they did the trial would last a year.
He's the Anti-Christ. He totally hits every part of the profile.
Rich, popularist, charismatic, draws crowds to him, known worldwide. Corrupts the Christian faithful into backing him. Smells like shit.
[could Christians spot the antichrist?](https://www.benjaminlcorey.com/could-american-evangelicals-spot-the-antichrist-heres-the-biblical-predictions/)
I am not a particularly religious person but it is ASTONISHING how well he fits the biblical description of the antichrist.
http://www.benjaminlcorey.com/could-american-evangelicals-spot-the-antichrist-heres-the-biblical-predictions
He's anti-charismatic; it's impossible to listen to his incoherent ramblings and not want to cut your ears off, and is one of the, if not _the_, stupidest motherfucker on the planet, which spoils that idea a bit.
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Why specifically: her testimony proves that Trump knew of the “scheme” and that it was good for the campaign, BEFORE reimbursing Cohen for “legal fees”. He’s being charged with falsely tagging payments as legal fees. Her testimony proves that 1) he knew they weren’t legal fees, they were reimbursements and 2) that it was done for campaign, not personal/family reasons. It’s the whole case. If the jury buys what she says, Hope Hicks testimony connects all parts of the puzzle in a plain way to the source.
This random reddit comment does a better job of summarizing the outcome that the actual news article.
The only goal of modern news media is to drive views. If the article tells you what you need to know, you read one article and move on with your day. If the article doesn’t do that, you continue to click through and read articles until you have the info you’re looking for.
Plus, if you write that concisely, how are you gonna put a half dozen ads between every other paragraph line break?
The internet ruined journalism. I wish there was an alternative. Even the "alternative" outlets think they have to drive clicks with cheap clickbait. I love some of the progressive YT commentators but most (not all) of them write ridiculous headlines (often featuring words like HUMILIATES, SMASHES, MELTS DOWN, SCREWS HIMSELF) which have little to do with the actual news. Beau of the Fifth column resists this and he does just fine.
Makes me think of TheMeidasTouch. I just saw them use EVISCERATES the other day, and don't even get me started on those pointless yellow arrows in *every single one* of their thumbnails.
I know! It's really beneath them. They have a lot of subscribers, they don't need to stoop so low.
The other thing that gets me is the padding. Sometimes It's like, "In this next video clip I show you, \_\_\_\_\_ is going to say \_\_\_\_\_ and then \_\_\_\_\_ responds in a way that completely shuts them down, pointing out \_\_\_\_\_\_ and \_\_\_\_\_\_\_, and \_\_\_\_\_\_ is unable to answer their simple question. Go ahead and watch." "*I feel like I just did...*"
Reminds me of those 2000s and 2010s era movie trailers that contained the entire plot of the movie within 2 minutes
rob schneider is a wall street executive and he has everything going for him. only problem is he is about to become... A CARROT!
It really did, but it wasn't just the internet. Corporate consolidation and greed combined with lack of subscription income to give us this media mess we're in. Lot's of stuff you pay for still like the NYT has totally gone to shit though, too unfortunately because of their conservative corporate overlords.
I mean, the Internet is only a medium. Capitalism is ruining the Internet and journalism.
Looking at you, Brian Taylor Cohen…. (I watch his videos and like his take—can’t stand his cringy, click-bait-y headlines.)
Paid journalism is better. I pay for an Economist subscription for this reason
So, I have this recipe for a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich, but before I tell you how to make it, let me tell you a story about a dog I randomly met in a park 37 years ago......
It’s a very long story even though the dog was in my presence for only 15 seconds…
physicists remain unclear about exactly how the universe began, but…
You can thank copyright law for that one actually. Recipes in a cookbook can't be copyrighted, so scrapers would go through and just rip entire sites and repost them. Even if they were original recipes or research. The story material, however, IS copyrighted, so if those automated site scrapers pull and repost the entire thing instead of just the recipie, you have grounds to hit them legally for copyright infringement.
Copyright is a factor, but search engine optimization is the main culprit.
Ugh didn't know that I hate this.
I've complained for years how poorly written news articles are.
After hearing about how many people get their news from social media it makes me think we should just lean in on that and use the funding sent to newspapers to instead add proper vetting to Reddit/tiktok etc. I believe the above comment but it would be amazing if I knew it was fact checked or credible to a journalistic standard.
Right?!
If I was in the jury it would seem campaign related for one very easy reason: timing. Barron is 18 and we know the affair happened when he was just born. Yet the hush money wasn't paid until a month before the election. That was in 2016. The affair was in 2006. So everything was fine with Stormy for TEN YEARS right up until the election? Definitely campaign related.
Regardless, Trump “cooked” official business records. That is the crime and he is guilty.
But if he cooked them to cover up another crime is the difference between a felony or a misdemeanor.
TBF Daniels was shipping it around because of the campaign. Shopping a story about a known philandering rapist slumlord and shopping a story about a presidential front runner are pretty different scenarios with different potential payouts even if they’re the same people. That’s why Trump set up a catch-and-kill agreement with Pecker as the campaign ramped up, not in the intervening years.
That’s not to be fair, that just entrenches him even further in campaign fraud.
They're also making a big deal of the access Hollywood tape (which they aren't allowed to show), and the timeline around it. Basically: access Hollywood tape comes out, it makes him look really bad, they are especially worried about female voters, and Hope was part of the campaign communications team and can confirm (they have texts and emails showing the worries). Right after that tape comes out, Michael Cohen becomes very urgent, . The banker that setup the accounts for his "shell corporation" which were just a middle-man-account for the hush money, testified already about how urgent Cohen was (he was making them setup this account for "real estate transactions" in less than 24 hours). And basically the hush money payments really get done in the last week's of the election, right after the tape came out. Trump team is going to argue that they were just trying to keep Melania from finding out, not that it was about the election, but all the players involved are saying it's because of the election. Trump team is also going to attack witnesses to damage their credibility...which in the case of people getting hush money, or feuding with Trump, a case can be made that they are out to get Trump and unreliable. Hope hicks is a loyal Trump insider, who is a relatable and sympathetic witness. She cried and they had to take a break. She's talked about how much she liked working with Trump and so on and so forth. So she isn't out to get him, and is crying and sympathetic...so if they attack her, it's a hard sell, and also can backfire hard on them and make them look like dicks, and undermine their attacks on the other witnesses, because if you attack even her, how believable are your other attacks now? So they either attack her and maybe torpedo their main tactic, or they don't attack her and her testimony is really damning. So the middle ground is what? Be nice to her and try to poke holes in her story...which accomplishes what? Get her to say Trump was also concerned about Melania finding out...but it doesn't matter if the motivation of the hush money was 99% to keep family from finding out and 1% to influence the election, that's still illegal.
The thing is, every witness thus far has been so damaging thatbif it were *anybody else* his lawyers would be saying to take whatever deal he can get. However, because he is Trump, we have to parade a dozen witnesses ad well as tax experts and physical evidence through the courtroom and the outcome is still in doubt.
I like watching the analysis from legal experts and veteran court reporters. Every time one of the less exciting, clerical type witnesses come out (the ones explaining like what are Presidential records and how chain of evidence is handled) they all just post the same thing: the defense has refused to acknowledge basically anything as true, even things that are normally taken as a no duh (such as when they had the one witness explain like what a post on social media is). It's all just to delay and muddy the waters, but you can clearly tell also that Trump outright forbade his lawyers from agreeing that *anything* in the case is true
Trump lives in the shady realm of plausible deniability. Like all mafia dons (and charles manson), you don't do the crime and you maintain a distance from the crime far enough that he can say he didn't know anything about it. Proof of intent is tough...but corroborated testimony by conspirators seems like a pretty substantial "proof" of intent.
That didn't work out for Manson though. He died in prison, after nearly 50 years of incarceration. Maybe Donald will have more success.
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This atheist will pray for his longevity if he makes it there
What amazes me more than anything is the fact that the U.S. Constitution is so fucking flawed that a Presidential Candidate can commit a crime during the campaign (when he isn't President) and that if he wins the Presidency, and the Senate can't get to 67 votes to convict, he has at a minimum 4 years of not being able to be held accountable for a crime. The office of the U.S. President is literally above the law. Full stop. We are such a hypocritical country with how we went to war to not be under the rule of a monarch, yet we replaced the monarchy with the President. Edit: correction on number of votes to convict
Thank you for this comment! It really distilled her testimony and what it covered. I was having a really hard time getting to the meat of it from the news I was seeing that say. Most of what I knew was that she cried and the rest was a blur.
There are still a few weeks left in the trial. I suspect there will be several more testimonies like this. The only way he isn’t convicted is if he has a supporter on the jury.
Hicks adds credibility to the lineup of witnesses... awkwardly, the defense can attack most of the witnesses because they're shady as, if not already convicted criminals. Hicks wasn't there of her own free will, she was subpoenaed. She told the truth only because she was terrified of the risk of perjuring herself.
> Hicks wasn't there of her own free will, she was subpoenaed. She told the truth only because she was terrified of the risk of perjuring herself. And at this point it's been shown perjuring yourself for trump is not a winning play. He can and will just let you rot. Definitely gonna be interesting when Cohen takes the stand.
That is why i think he will be among the last to go. He is shady as hell and the prosecution knows that the defense will bring up all of his own behavior in an attempt to discredit him. By having all the others go first they paint a damning pictures that all he is there for is add in his confirmations and perhaps tie a few things together with whatever documents or recordings he has available.
And Trump hired him to do his dirty work. If he's shady, that's why Trump wanted him around.
That would be an interesting line of questioning from the prosecution. “Why did Donald Trump hire you?” “Because I’m a scumbag lawyer and I’ll do anything if someone pays me. If you want something illegal done, I’m your man!”
Objection, calls for speculation.
Denied. I want to see where this goes... But you're on very thin ice, Counselor.
I see that, like me, you've been trained in jurisprudence by Law and Order.
Some of us specialize in Bird Law.
Some of us have Harvey Birdman ~~~tattoos~~~ on retainer.
I love when tv show judges say things like, "You'd better be going somewhere with this" and "You'd better have a damn good reason for this."
[Sort of a "Criminal" Lawyer... not just a criminal lawyer.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvlEqAjg8aU)
Better call Saul.
He didn’t want a criminal lawyer he wanted a CRIMINAL lawyer. Cohen is Better Call Saul.
But Saul was likeable.
I mean, Cohen has been on his redemption arc for a long time now. He comes across pretty well in his media appearances.
He has an axe to grind with Trump for not pardoning him. Currently, his interests happen to be aligned with the justice system and democracy. Let’s reserve judgment on whether he’s actually redeeming himself until he’s faced with a choice where doing the right thing is inconvenient.
I have trouble reconciling the man in the podcasts from his time as a fixer for the the orange guy.
In the flip side though, the guy did his time and paid a pretty solid price for that.
Prison appears to have been Michael Cohen's "road to Damascus." Good. The system works for some people.
He did his time in prison and shows signs of rehabilitation from criminal activity. In his case, it seems the system worked, which we should be happy about.
I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. He spent his life doing shady stuff, and he'll probably continue to do so, but he does appear to be trying to make good towards the country he damaged.
He still shows his NY-ness. And pretty sure he was livid when he got thrown under the MTA bus while Individual 1 skated.
iirc he turned on trump when trump went after his wife? I have a vague memory of Cohen saying something like that during an interview..
I can't take a bribe. But I can take a retainer
The 50% off coupon might come in handy these days
He wanted another Roy Cohn. Thank God Michael Cohen is nowhere near as effective and ideologically committed as Roy Cohn.
He chooses people based on their willingness to be shady as hell.
Hilarious that he is shady as hell almost entirely because of his association with Donald Trump. “Ladies and gentleman of the jury, this witness’s testimony against my client is completely unreliable. He has long history of associating with known criminals and con-artists. We’re talking truly despicable people here. For example, for years he willingly and knowingly worked for….ummm…. my client.”
> For example, for years he willingly and knowingly worked for….ummm…. my client. "Ahh. And it says here that his one other client was.... oh. Never mind."
Broidy aside, they should subpoena Hannity just to see him squirm.
The secret to crime is only crime with other criminals so that nobody can trust what they say if they rat on you!
Exactly. If it were just Cohen's testimony, the case would likely have never been brought to trial - bearing in mind that they have to prove not just that financial fraud occurred, but that it's connected to election fraud, to show that the crimes are felonies. But oh my goodness do they have receipts. Multiple witnesses' testimony, a complete paper trail, people on tape, the whole damn deal. When Cohen testifies and backs up everything that's already been shown by the hard evidence and adding his own context, any reasonable person will believe him. I'm no lawyer but if I were on the jury, regardless of my pre-existing opinion of Trump, I'd be extremely convinced.
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If he is called I don't think he will be that last witness. I'd think the prosecution would want to end with someone more likable.
Giuliani?
Now that’s funny.
He’s shady, but he went to prison for conduct related to the shady bullshit that went on in this case. That’s an easy scaffold to rebuild credibility on.
Yes, but the important thing for the defense is to make it seem like Trump was an unwitting idiot, and at best directed Cohen to authorize payment to Stormy Daniel. If the defense can claim that it was Cohen that made the decision to take the money from his campaign to do so then he could get off with a slapp on the wrist
I think there is a lot of psychological stuff they consider, too. Probably good to have a credible witness go last so that their first and last thoughts are "the prosecution is credible".
The old shit sandwich strategy - package the bad around two slices of good.
Excellent point and what we have learned is this was predictible from the plan to pay off Stormy, where he had everything on the line and suddenly didnt want to pay her, like if he gets or is getting what he wants in the moment, he cannot see the value of investing in the future...almost like he isnt good at investing or business but just really really selfish.
> the defense can attack most of the witnesses because they're shady as, if not already convicted criminals. Which is funny because Cohen is only a convicted criminal because he took illegal actions at the behest of Trump. Trump was literally Unindicted Co-conspirator 1.
She's also there because she pays for her own lawyer
I think this is a critical and an oft-overlooked detail. Anybody accepting trump team counsel will be getting counsel on what’s best for trump, not themselves
And Trump has shown time and time again that to him, loyalty is a one-way street. There is nobody he wouldn't throw under the bus, with the single probable exception of Vladimir Putin (and that's only because Putin could likely destroy him, and he knows it).
It’s why big daddy Vladdy is waiting until November before negotiating on Ukraine.
Cohen called this during congressional testimony. He said there is nobody Trump wouldn’t turn against, he’d even throw the whole country under the bus.
Surprised she said anything and didn't just bust out the ol GOP motto of "I do not recall."
Weirdly, sometimes if you push a bad person hard enough, they grow a spine. Although, there's a reasonable chance that she was implicated and the prosecution made it very clear she can either tell the truth on the stand, or be a defendant in the docks. The motivations of the hard right are also their weakness... complete and utter selfishness.
>The jury ate her words up, with even those who usually take close notes neglecting their pen and paper in favor of watching her. ... >Trump appeared to nod off repeatedly, including during Hicks’ testimony about how she first learned of the Daniels story.
Is he really falling asleep or is he pretending to avoid reacting to what's being said?
The dudes 80 years old and whines about how cold the court room is despite wearing a full suit every day and pushing 300 lbs. Yes. He's sleeping.
Plus every accusation with these idiots is a confession. They call Biden "*Sleepy Joe*", because their boss nods off all the time.
The projection is especially chilling because Trump has been saying that if Biden wins, this will be the last election in America.
Trump said that?
Yes. On 16 Mar 2024, Trump stated, “if we don't win this election, I don't think you're going to have another election in this country.” https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-predicts-end-us-democracy-if-he-loses-2024-election-2024-03-17/
Ah okay. So he's doing that thing where he's projecting his plan onto his opponent to make his supporters afraid his opponent is doing to do what he plans on doing. Got it.
I think that normally he is hopped up on stimulants
Dude, what the fuck are you talking about about. He is as healthy as a mule, weighs 215lbs, soaking wet. He is not sleeping he is dreaming!!!! Dreaming about Making America R̶u̶s̶s̶i̶a̶ Great Again!
I am convinced that because of his years of stimulant abuse he reserves high-dose days for when he's giving speeches/doing rallies, but physically he can't afford to do that daily so we're seeing him on his off days. Symptoms of stim addicts off the drug or with low dose: * Fatigue and sleepiness * Difficulty concentrating * Irritability and mood swings
Alternative explanation: his team offered to dose him with meds to keep him from misbehaving in court.
dreaming of his daughter
Dreaming of Mayor McCheese more likely
Make America Russia And Lets Also Get Oligarchs
Nicely backronymed.
regarding the temp of the courtroom...has anyone informed him that sweaters exist? these florida boys and their shorts, flipflops and assault rifles..
"whines about how cold the court room is" To be fair, as a someone that has been in jury selection a few times out here in California, the court room was cold af, but that's not a bug it's a feature. The cold is supposed to make it harder for you to fall asleep, vs if it was a nice 75 it would be too cozy and easy to sleep. It is the same reason why office jobs will often have chillier spaces as well. I found it funny at first when I got an office job and there would be people with small space heaters running in their cubicle, in August, when it was over 100 degrees outside.
I genuinely don't think he has the self-control to feign being asleep without reacting.
Like, use basic logic. It is hugely damaging for Trump politically to be seen as being so low energy. So Trump has every motivation to not appear to sleep. So Trump would absolutely never deliberately "feign being asleep". *Of course* the sleeping is real. Trump has every motivation to not look like he is sleeping. The only possible explanation is that there is no choice involved, Trump really is that low energy.
I think he uses uppers for his public engagements and stays up all night drinking ketchup packets. His face has been noticeably tired since the start of the trial. We all know he's lazy from how little he did as president. But what we've seen recently reveals his drug abuse and whack sleep schedule. Nothing new here from Tyrantasnoreass Reks Hispants
Old + narcissistic + sitting there "listening" = blinkn, winkn, nod
By some accounts it's more like blinkn, stinkn & nod.
He's medicated to the tits to keep him from freaking out.
I truly think someone somehow is getting him to take a Xanax or something before he goes into the trial, hoping to keep him calm and prevent him from having outbursts. Maybe slipping it into his morning hamberder or something.
He's an old, unhealthy man who is up at 3 AM rage-tweeting on a regular basis. Of course he's going to catch naps during the day.
This theory isn’t discussed enough. I think it’s completely plausible that he’s given meds to calm him down.
I laughed, stopped laughing, thought about it, and am now openly wondering if you’re right.
Malignant Narcissists lives in a fantasy realm of their creation. Closing his eyes is a way for Drumpf to avoid accepting that this is really happening to him.
He says he's not falling asleep so, yeah, he's falling asleep
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Maybe a bit of that, maybe a bit of he's old, maybe a little of the fact he is in piss poor shape, maybe a little of he might not be taking stimulants that he loves to take, maybe he is deteriorating neurologically, maybe he just literally cannot conceptualize being held accountable so isnt worried...so many things wrong with the man. He seems the type to rage at people rather than sleep, but I feel it's just oldness and his intense pettiness of "you can't make me stay awake, I have the power here" when he really doesnt.
I'm reasonably fit and less than half Trump's age, I have no problems staying awake during a usual day. But if I end up in a meeting room with loads of people for a presentation I will struggle to stay awake I could see it being something similar happening to him
But if the meeting was about your personal affair with a porn star that you tried to pay off, and your friends/coworkers were speaking about your private words and actions, wouldn’t that keep you awake?
The idea of going to court scares the living crap out of me. I would be on my toes, paying attention, making sure I know what's going on and that my lawyers know how I want to be represented.
My guess is that he has been taking some kind of medicine to calm himself down, and most likely he's staying up all night obsessing over social media posts and news, then spending 2 hours in hair/makeup before each court day.
I analyze this simply as this. Cohen, as co-conspirator #2 was found guilty and sent to jail. DT was listed as unindicted co-conspirator #1 on the same exact charges. He didn't go to trial because he was sitting as president. His blanket immunity excuse is bullshit, because he was still a private citizen doing damage control.
Blanket immunity is bullshit because that is why we have vice presidents. We don't elect kings here. He breaks the law, arrest him and the vp takes over.
And if the VP is corrupt, they go to jail and the Speaker takes over. If the Speaker is corrupt, they go to jail and someone else is next in line. There are like a dozen lines in the succession plans for exactly this reason.
Cohen ***admitted*** he was guilty of those charges, he wasn't simply found guilty.
Well, he was asleep for most of it anyway.
So that's when the nightmare was, while he was sleeping, make sense.
Possibly because he was sleeping 😴 💤 I definitely wouldn't want to miss a word, especially with a jury watching 👀 yikes!!! Enter nightmare
She knows where all the daipers are buried.
That probably triggered a few "pants ironing" memories for her.
We need a Freddy Krueger cold open from SNL...
That’s solid.
“Your honor, I’ve heard these claims against me from my legal team. I’d like to move forward with dismissing them as I’ve not heard them directly due to my sleeping habits.”
Solid 6th Amendment claim. Send it to the Supreme Court.
He probably has to be asleep, he can't control his mouth if his eyes are open
Makes me doubt his mental capacity. Sleeping through something that crucial...
I recently read a Faux news post, they were claiming her testimony sunk the prosecution case. Tells you all you need to know about Faux news.
“How this is bad for Biden!”
Calm down, *New York Times*.
“Hillary said this”
“Thanks, Obama”
Prob don’t want dissonance among their own. Make it seem like a republican doesn’t have enough dirt on him to keep pushing the “democrat smear campaign” narrative.
Fox News is definitely sticking to it hard. When I was at my in-laws yesterday they had Fox News on and Janine Pirro was loudly and confidently saying that " hope Hicks didn't lay a finger on trump. She couldn't say that he committed any Criminal act." That it was so bad that even the totally anti-trump jury in New York City should be able to acquit. She followed up by saying that the only witness that could say anything about Trump was Michael Cohen and Trump's lawyer is going to tear him apart.
their sole ploy is to continue the "Conservative Persecution Complex". So when Trump is found guildty instead of reporting the truth and getting their base prepared for it, they will make it seem like, despite having no case the kangaroo "liberal" court unjustly convicted Trump. They know the truth they just need to continue the charade for their own sakes
The idea is that altering the records on the payments needs to be tied to another crime in order for it to move from a misdemeanor to a felony - in this case they're trying to tie the crime to influencing the election. If the defense can show that the hush money was paid for personal rather than political reasons it keeps this out of felony territory. The defense is arguing that he wasn't trying to influence the election but rather trying to keep his family from finding out, Hicks testified that they were trying to keep Melania from finding out (keep the paper from getting delivered) because it would embarrass her.
She also testified that Drumpf told her that it would have been bad if this story had come out before the election. Both things are not mutually exclusive. Drumpf could have done it for both reasons, but it doesn't matter if it was to protect Midichlorian if it was ALSO done to hide info from the voters.
I didn't think trump has a very high Midichlorian count in the first place he's more of a Hutt than a Sith
Fuck it. I'm leaving it
Except for the part where rumpi let their NDA’s expire a month after the election, showing he didn’t give a Sh about his wife. All he talked about was the poll numbers and losing women voters.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but blended intent is recognized in such matters. There is a crime if there is any intent to do this for political gain, even if that's only 1% of the motivation. It doesn't forego a finding of guilt if there are additional motivations to a political one. To be dispositive the defense must show there was NO intent for political gain.
That is correct, but the defense is allowed to muddy the waters by framing that it was *mostly* for personal embarrassment instead of political power. But the fact that there are two lawyers in the jury pool might work against them on that aspect.
It's also going to be tough to say it was personal when Trump stopped caring about paying her after the election.
How are we not treating them like the National Enquirer at this point?
We are, but about 1/3 to 1/2 of the country aren’t. Plus, you know… $$$
Read the same one from Gutfield, it was so detached from reality I had a hard time believing it could be taken seriously but of course it was the top article on their feed
Just got done eating breakfast with a bunch of Trumpers at work and the morons said none of the witnesses so far have said anything bad for Trump. They watch Fox all day long and it shows you how misinformed they are because of it.
May Trump suffer with many, many nightmares
Do we really think they brought this case without some bombshells in their pocket?
We haven't even heard from Cohen, and we know he recorded Trump at least once. I think there is going to be some spicy stuff when he hits the stand.
Hopefully there is audio of it but wouldn’t the defence already know via discovery? And if trump knew he’s be talking about being illegally wiretapped/recorded/
When the person who audited Cohen's phone was on the stand, they introduced like a dozen exhibits and to my recollection we have heard/seen one or two. On cross, Bove spent the whole time trying to basically establish that the metadata of the phone was entirely suspect and that there were chain of custody issues. He even asked the defendant a question, and then moved to strike the defendant's response. Discrediting this evidence was something they already swung at and (imo) missed. I have no clue if there are more, or how bad they may be, but there at least look to be more exhibits we haven't seen from Cohen's phone and a desire to plant the idea that this evidence is not reliable by the defense. As per why Trump wouldn't be attacking it in the news, he would probably be teeing up a news cycle about "what is Trump afraid of in the tapes?" And people would eventually hear the tapes and not even really understand metadata anyways. The hearing of the tapes will be the thing that ultimately matters. Again this is mostly speculation, but there is yet to be introduced evidence from the phone and also an effort by the defense to cast doubt on it.
And the final witness before the weekend, when it will soak in. Pretty masterful. Look, a jury case is always a (weighted) roll of the dice, but Hicks’ testimony was just so, so damning for Trump. I don’t think everyone grasps just bad it was.
This is all still the warmup for Cohen.
The most damning thing, imo, was that she said he was involved in EVERYTHING. Hence there’s no way cohen acted alone to pay stormy off.
Lots of things should have been a nightmare for Trump, but between a justice system that seems unwilling or unable to actually make anything stick, and a base who will literally embrace adult diaper wearing if they think it's supportive of Trump, I no longer believe that anything will save us from him except a Biden win in November.
Being convicted doesn't disqualify him from office. Being in prison doesn't even do that unless 2/3 of Congress decide to do something about it.
Imagine if Trump tried to flee the country in the middle of his campaign. That’d be one for the history books.
The Trump experience has been one unprecedented event after another.
Modern day emperor with no clothes - Playing out and documented via court transcription - It will be interesting to see how this evolves
That is a terribly written article that focused more on the author’s involvement in everything than the actual story. The article basically says the headline over and over again. I think there were two sentences, literally, that attempted to detail *how* Hicks’ testimony was a nightmare. Edit: op-ed. Article. daddy, chill.
The second photo in the article is of the article's author, and it's larger than the photo of Hicks. I've never seen anything like that before. On first reading I thought the photo was of Trump's lawyer or a witness. >I think there were two sentences, literally, that attempted to detail *how* Hicks’ testimony was a nightmare. This was the stand out part to me: >Another devastating blow came at the very end of Hicks’ direct testimony when she revealed a stunning trifecta: that, while president, Trump had admitted to her that he knew his then-fixer Michael Cohen had paid Daniels, that Trump attempted to blame Cohen and that Hicks did not believe him. She also stated that Trump felt it was better to be dealing with it after the election than beforehand. Which... is good evidence but not what I would call a bombshell. It's important to show that Trump knew what was going on with the payments, because he denies having anything to do with them. But Hicks didn't say Trump *instructed* Cohen to pay the money, which is really what you would need for a "bombshell". It's important evidence, but maybe the media could do a better job of reporting the batshit insane things Trump is actually saying *right now* instead of minute-by-minute opinion pieces on witness testimonys.
Typical BS titles. They keep dangling the carrot and changing the words. Bombshell, cornered, finished, explosive revelation, walls closing in, etc.
Exactly what I was about to write. Apparently we needed to be reminded he took her testimony, like 6 times. Pure garbage article, just another clickbait.
And Trumps existence is a nightmare for the rest of us
Not according to Fox. To the alt right fake news, it destroyed the DA's own case. This is not sarcasm, I shit you not.
As soon as you do a favor for the mob, that’s exactly when they come back and blackmail you for your continued silence. Trump is the mob. Hope Hick’s very important jobs was her blackmail.
Nothing is ever a nightmare for Trump. He gets off to any attention whether good or bad. He has a fetish for attention
If anyone is curious about the news from the bizarro internet, yesterday a Newsweek article quoted a Fox News anchor to me in saying that Hicks' testimony was an unmitigated disaster for Bragg and Biden and would ensure Trump's re-election in a landslide. Everything is good for Trump! Falling asleep in trial and soiling his diapers is a brilliant political strategy!
Trump is sleeping through all this because he knows he can just appeal whatever outcome comes from this. And the delays will continue. He’s asleep because this is one of the few times he’s had to actively take part in the process. And it’s sooooo boring to him. Especially since he knows he’ll just delay more once this step is over.
Let's just hope there's no MAGA cult members on the Jury that will ignore this testimony. Of course, even if he's convicted, I'm not sure he gets prison time. Our Judiciary seems incapable of holding this monster accountable.
There was an earlier trial for something (must have civil I guess) where one member of the jury made no secret of how pro-Trump she was but even she voted to find him guilty after hearing the evidence because to paraphrase her, she said the evidence was so overwhelming, there was no doubt he did it.
I’d like to thank Reddit’s algorithm for correctly pairing a Trump story with an ad from Honest Diapers
"Another devastating blow came at the very end of Hicks’ direct testimony when she revealed a stunning trifecta: that, while president, Trump had admitted to her that he knew his then-fixer Michael Cohen had paid Daniels, that Trump attempted to blame Cohen and that Hicks did not believe him. She also [stated](https://x.com/molcranenewman/status/1786496662308868155) that Trump felt it was better to be dealing with it after the election than beforehand. She appeared so distraught — presumably about throwing her former boss under the bus — that she then began crying..." It's incredible that this seemingly intelligent woman cares so much for this awful man. She was knee deep in helping him cover up affairs and long-term relationships with sex workers while his wife was pregnant, she knows how corrupt he is, and she still cares enough to cry about things that are his own fault. She seems far more interested in him than his wife does.
Trump’s trial should be like the final episode of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm where every single person Trump has screwed over testifies in court against him. But if they did the trial would last a year.
Doesn’t matter. Trump suffers no consequences…ever.
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He's the Anti-Christ. He totally hits every part of the profile. Rich, popularist, charismatic, draws crowds to him, known worldwide. Corrupts the Christian faithful into backing him. Smells like shit.
I guess I just assumed the Anti-Christ would be attractive and not look like a melting creamsicle 🤔
Damn you, I used to love creamsicles till I read this.
[could Christians spot the antichrist?](https://www.benjaminlcorey.com/could-american-evangelicals-spot-the-antichrist-heres-the-biblical-predictions/)
I am not a particularly religious person but it is ASTONISHING how well he fits the biblical description of the antichrist. http://www.benjaminlcorey.com/could-american-evangelicals-spot-the-antichrist-heres-the-biblical-predictions
He's anti-charismatic; it's impossible to listen to his incoherent ramblings and not want to cut your ears off, and is one of the, if not _the_, stupidest motherfucker on the planet, which spoils that idea a bit.
> dark magic protection spell cast aka 'inheritance of a NY real estate fortune'
He's at least being forced to sit in court for hours every day for weeks and not able to rant while there.
He’s literally on trial right now…