Bombshell report reveals Trump could be indicted under seal without his knowledge

[fleur-de-lisa]

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/bombshell-report-reveals-trump-indicted-seal-without-knowledge/#.WxGtwFMibqo.twitter

Berkeley, California attorney Alexander Stern, released a bombshell report on Friday that suggests President Donald Trump may be under a sealed indictment without even knowing.

The report gathered eight leading criminal law professors across the country. The Department of Justice has argued that indicting President Trump could distract him from his presidential duties, but Stern said a sealed indictment could take away that concern.

A sealed indictment could start the process under the radar, thus eliminating the potential distractions that a public indictment would create. If a sealed indictment takes place, President Trump would not face any consequences until after he leaves office.

“It just sets the process in motion formally. It empowers the courts to have authority over Mr.Trump, so that perhaps if Mr. Mueller is fired or otherwise leaves his post, the judicial branch will have jurisdiction and they are not beholden to Mr. Trump,” Stern told Raw Story.

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Something must be done, Putin is ordering Rump to destroy America's name

and our trade and our economy.

Putin wants us destroyed and Rump must do what he is told.

Personally, I consider us AT WAR with russia and their accomplices, the GOP.

But I cant fight the war by myself, hell, I can barely convince people to understand MATH

[C Moon]

24. +1

[Saviolo]

26. I feel like the trade wars thing may be all Trump with little or no help from Putin.

Someone on my Twitter feed put it very eloquently today. Here's a link to the first tweet in the thread:

Link to tweet

And here's the text of the thread:

Believe it or not, Trump's insane proclamation that he will keep tariffs in place until there are no more Mercedes on Fifth Avenue gave me a moment of clarity.

I think I finally understand Trump's economic philosophy now. And we are absolutely screwed.

The one thing that you need to understand about Trump is that he is, at his core, a con man with no empathy.

Therefore, he assumes that all other people are also con men with no empathy, and every exchange of goods and services that exists in the world is, on some level, a con.

Trump assumes every transaction in the world — between people, businesses, nation-states, even between two different agencies of the same government — has a winner and a loser, a scammer and a sucker. He believes if you're not ripping someone off, you're getting ripped off.

From an economist's perspective, this is complete nonsense. Unless there are major information asymmetries or distortions of market power, and often even then, most transactions are generally to the mutual benefit of both parties.
Otherwise no deals would ever get made.

But Trump — the man who created a fake university, made stiffed contractors, hired the mob, and filed for bankruptcy six times — cannot believe his.

So he goes out of his way to cherrypick how he sees the world, so that everything we do looks like either a ripoff or a steal.

It's not simply that Trump *doesn't* think the Paris Climate Agreement, Iran nuclear deal, TPP, NAFTA, or luxury cars from Germany are a good deal for America. It's that he *can't* think that.

It's an alien concept to him that a deal other people want with us could also help us.

To Trump's mind, the mere fact other countries sought out these deals with us, and that their own economies benefit, is unassailable proof we got ripped off.

He can't see the evidence they helped us too. His mind will only cherry-pick potential ways it could be bad for us.

This is why Trump will never, ever, be able to negotiate with the rest of the world. He doesn't believe in mutual benefit.

The second anyone tells him "this is your end of the deal" he'll rip it up. He believes only one party can have an end of the deal, and it shouldn't be him.

So folks, I hate to tell you this, but he's only getting started.

He will forego billions, maybe trillions, of dollars in world trade. He will forego bilateral security agreements. And if he ever gets something from another nation it will be by force.

As I said: we're screwed.

And we're not just screwed on foreign policy, but domestic. This explains his behavior over DACA, spiking two bipartisan deals even though they were what he asked for.

He assumed if Democrats were willing to talk, his deal wasn't ripping them off, ergo it would rip him off.

That implies if Democrats win Congress, we are going to enter an all-out legislative standstill like we've never before seen.

Our system is entirely reliant on compromise and compromise isn't compatible with Trump's beliefs. We will struggle to pass even basic reauthorizations.

So yeah: our nightmare is not going to end until we get this pathological con man out of office.

He is not just bad at being president, he has a defective way of seeing the world that is not compatible with being president.

And we will pay for it.

[Sophia4]

29. Please post this as a separate OP for a separate thread.

Everyone needs to read and think about it. Thanks.

[GreenPartyVoter]

34. hear, hear!

[Saviolo]

38. Done, thanks!

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210684690

[GreenPartyVoter]

41. Thanks! Sharing w/ my family.

[Saviolo]

37. Done, thanks!

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210684690

[fleur-de-lisa]

2. Andrew Laufer:

Link to tweet

[fleur-de-lisa]

3. From June 2016:

https://patribotics.blog/2017/05/14/exclusive-sealed-indictment-granted-against-donald-trump/amp/

Separate sources with links to the intelligence and justice communities have stated that a sealed indictment has been granted against Donald Trump.

While it is understood that the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution means that, until Mr. Trump is impeached, he cannot be prosecuted, sources say that the indictment is intended by the FBI and prosecutors in the Justice Department to form the basis of Mr. Trump’s impeachment. The indictment is, perhaps uniquely, not intended or expected to be used for prosecution, sources say, because of the constitutional position of the President.

[triron]

5. Yep, Louise Mensch said so long ago.

Time may tell.

[shanny]

13. Actually the date in that post is May 14, 2017

which is, btw, 3 days before the Special Counsel was appointed.

[Me.]

31. My First Thought Was Partibotics

who was greeted with much derision when she said this

[onenote]

39. And deservedly so.

She didn't merely say sealed indictments might be used (which is simply speculation), she claimed such indictments had been handed down. Around the same time she also ran a story that the Trump presidency effectively ended in May 2017 and that Orrin Hatch was being prepped to take over the presidency.

The list of absurd shit she's posted goes on and on.

[Pepsidog]

18. My thoughts exactly. Mensch seems to get a bad rap but it appears she has been ahead

of the MSM by 6 months at least. Seems like she has been writing about Alfa Bank, Trump servers and all kinds of mis-deeds for quite some time.

[bearsfootball516]

4. There should be a disclaimer that this article is pure speculation.

It's possible that he's under a sealed indictment, but we don't have any knowledge that he actually is.

[HopeAgain]

6. How can pure speculation be a "bombshell" report?

That's just silly...

[fleur-de-lisa]

7. I didn't write the headline. I just posted it, verbatim.

[HopeAgain]

8. I'm not criticizing you

I am criticizing Raw Story

[mythology]

10. This nonsense is why Raw Story is worthless

So much breathless bullshit.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

21. It's an informed conclusion, carrying 8 signatures. Hardly "pure speculation".

I invite you to take issue with their conclusions. In detail.

[unblock]

9. I've been saying this for a long time.

Truth be told, I think it's nonsensical to think the founders wanted a sitting president to be immune from indictment.

The constitution is fundamentally designed to minimize the risk of tyranny, so its complete nonsense to think a president should be free to commit all manner of federal crimes, including against the members of Congress who might otherwise impeach him, and remain above the law until he leaves office.

That said, a sealed indictment avoids even having a fight about it, so it's certainly an expedient way for mueller to discharge his duties.


The bigger questions are whether a sitting president can stand trial (I think he can, given that Clinton prove being involved in a civil trial wasn't overly disruptive to his presidential duties) or whether a sitting president can be sentenced and made to serve that sentence.

I think serving a prison sentence would be overly inconsistent with fulfilling the duties of the president, so that's problematic. One would certainly hope congress would impeach and remove at that point, though with these republicans, who knows.

[byronius]

27. It's horrifyingly hilarious how Trumpies assume their president is a monarch.

Any other president, however -- 'lock 'em up!'

The percentage of conservatives in any society is measure of that society's doom -- higher than 50% and you're cooked.

11% or lower and you're colonizing the solar system.

[regnaD kciN]

32. Correction...

If the number of conservatives who turn out to vote is higher than 50% of the electorate, you're cooked. (Conservatives make up far less than 50% of the U.S. citizenry.)

I'd add the caveat that, in national elections, you don't even need >50% of the turnout...just a majority in certain key states (thank you, Electoral College ).

[byronius]

36. Point.

[Hoyt]

11. Doubt it. What's the use, if he's not removed from office now.

[madville]

12. I expect Trump to resign shortly before his term ends

And for Pence to issue him a broad pardon just to cover that base. Pence gets to be President for a couple of weeks and Trump has a blanket get out of jail free card.

[Mr.Bill]

17. Unless Pence is under sealed indictment, too.

Trump or Pence being under indictment will keep either one of them from pardoning anyone who is part of the same criminal conspiracy. Trump and his legal team know this, or he would have already pardoned everyone. Mueller is no dummy, and I would imagine one of the first things he did was to put Trump under sealed indictment. The evidence of Trump committing crimes is so blatant he would be the easiest one to indict. Remember, Mueller probably has his tax forms, audio of wiretaps of his conversations with the rest of his crime family, etc. If Mueller couldn't find evidence of any crimes being committed by Trump early in his investigation, we have bigger problems than we could imagine.

[calimary]

20. If that's true, then that suggests trump and his legal team already know he's up Shit Creek.

SOOOOOO much of this shows the actions of someone who is NOT innocent. Even Trey Gowdy made that point a little while back. He said something to the effect of "act like you're innocent" - as in, that's how one who is innocent WOULD act. As in, Donald, you're not acting like that.

[onenote]

40. Why would it keep them from pardoning anyone?

[Pepsidog]

19. Agree

[gibraltar72]

14. I'll wait for Rudy to weigh in. Before I decide if this is possible.

[Perseus]

15. But...we do want him to be distracted

Why are they worrying he will be "distracted"? Distracted from what? The guy is useless, beside his vitriol at his never ending campaigns, he is useless...well, I guess he is useful to the republicans, an idiot who can handle a pen...how can I forget that?

[smirkymonkey]

23. Exactly! Distracted from watching Fox News? From tweeting, From golfing, From shoving

fast food down his gullet? That is his entire existence.

[BigmanPigman]

16. Lawrence Tribe was on TV two weeks ago and he suggested that

Mueller could seal the indictment until he is out of office in 2020 or 2024 then unseal it as a way to successfully indict him.

[Mr.Bill]

22. If Trump is elected again in 2020,

that will be the last election we have in what is left of this country. Hell, if we don't take back one the houses of Congress in 2018, that may be the last election.

[pangaia]

25. "..indicting President Trump could distract him from his presidential duties..."

GOOD. DO IT !!!

[TygrBright]

28. ooo, I hope someone shows that to him. n/t

[procon]

30. The source seems to be the blog writing of one lawyer.

Take any personal opinions with a grain of salt.

[empedocles]

33. Sealed indictments have been a major Mueller weapon well used.

Great backup insurance strategic move. Flexible, below the radar. None of the players would dismiss these possibilities.

[Quixote1818]

35. I hope they are showing this to Cohen and everyone else who thinks they can get a pardon. nt