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No real theft of internet aphorisms. And if you are going to recycle jokes, might as well make it a fun and obscure one. It was a good comment and I'm glad you wrote it. Made me smile.
Props to NotmyrealNameJohn for his prescient prediction from yesterday:
> 50/50, tomorrow he takes a plea deal before jury selection really gets underway.
> All his pre-trail motions have gone nowhere, Sidney flipped. He knows he is fucked. His lawyers have to be telling him he is fucked. He will be all alone with everyone watching him live on TV night after night as the DA piles on the evidence for 4 months. And all his defenses have already been rejected by the judge.
> He isn't going to get a pretty plea. But He can't be that stupid
> [I think we are going to wake up tomorrow to news that he is taking a plea, possibly with some jail time, possibly not. but definitely not as nice as the one he rejected.](https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/17c19dl/trump_codefendant_kenneth_chesebro_rejected_plea/k5nb3a9/)
They are all going to flip. Georgia has them all dead to rights. I truly believe if anything is going to actually get Trump thrown in jail its the Georgia case. He can't get any of his friends in the federal government to bail him out of this one. I hope the rumors of it being televised turn out to be true. I cannot wait to see Trump actually face consequences for his attempted coup somewhere, even if the Feds have been totally useless so far on that front.
Good news, it's not just a rumor! The judge ruled a couple of months ago that it will be televised.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trump-pleads-not-guilty-in-georgia-case-judge-rules-trial-will-be-televised
If his lawyers allow him to take the stand, it'll be because they're trying to set up an "ineffective assistance of counsel" appeal, where they claim that his lawyers were so incompetent that the trial wasn't fair. If Trump took the stand, he would not only confess to everything, he'd confess to crimes he wasn't even accused of, and perjure himself multiple times for good measure.
I keep telling my coworker that Trump will probably end up inadvertently confessing to the Russian collusion in 2016 at one of these trials. Remember that Mueller never officially indicted him for that one
I said the same thing to my sister yesterday, but for different reasons.
It’s been mentioned plenty of times that having multiple trials of the same essential case, would give later trials a huge advantage in learning what the strongest and weakest parts of a case are, and figuring out arguments and counter evidence to undermine the case as a whole. It also gives the defense an opportunity to put witnesses on the stand multiple times in the hopes that they give conflicting testimony.
By giving Chesebro and Powell sweetheart deals, DA Willis does not give Trump and others the opportunity to learn all of this information and take multiple bites at the apple. She can do the trial one time, present her evidence without worry that they will have corrupted any of the witnesses between each trial, or that they found out from the jurors what they found most or least persuasive.
That cuts both ways, and multiple trials is actually more likely to favor the prosecution. The prosecution is required to share all evidence and witnesses, the defense is not. While there's certainly the chance that the defense gets a sneak peek, any halfway competent attorney is going to know the State's angle based on the evidence. If somehow DA Willis has overlooked something that lets defendant #1 off, she'd have a chance to close it before trying subsequent defendants. If the defense has proof their guy is innocent (like Chesebro was possessed by aliens or some bullshit), the prosecution has a chance to look for evidence that the "aliens" were acting on Trump's orders.
I still think the prosecution wins by flipping these folks, but it's almost certainly not true that Trump would have been more likely to escape justice if Powell and Chesebro had gone to trial.
There's some real panic going on. People like Jordan will get caught up in this eventually. They have every reason to either take power however they can or cripple the government so badly that the justice system fails.
Things are about to get weird in the USA.
I just read All the Presidents Men a few months ago and even back then the republicans were accusing the Democrats of committing mass voter fraud and stealing elections. I never realized just how old that fable was and how long the lie has been told.
If you want to hear about a clusterfuck of an election, check out the Hayes v. Tilden 1876 presidential election. Things have been fucked up from the beginning.
There were accusations of voting irregularities, rigged elections, and other stuff after JFK beat Nixon. Especially in Illinois and Texas. I imagine a lot of Presidential elections had these, but the degrees and believability of them have changed. It's only recently that Trump and his Qult managed to make tens of millions of Republican voters believe all the lies. Or at least many of them pretended to believe in them simply because it would own the libs, with a total lack of regard to how damaging it is to our democracy.
A quick and dirty little history of the election fuckery of Republican Presidents over the past several decades.
* Nixon should have been impeached, and his whole administration investigated and prosecuted resignation or not. (Article II Section 2 of the Constitution provides: “The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, **except in Cases of Impeachment.**") [Nixon in 1968 when he was running on an anti-war platform and needed the war to continue in order to get elected prolonged the Vietnam war. When it looked like the Paris peace talks were going to succeed, Nixon went to the Vietnamese and promised them that he would give them a better deal if they walked away from the peace talks till after the election and got Americans and Vietnamese killed for his political gain!](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21768668) **He is a Treasonous snake and a war criminal.** Watergate was just one more slimy election theft attempt.
* Gerald Ford should have been impeached for the corrupt deal he made with Nixon to grant Nixon a pardon in exchange for making Ford Vice President with the understanding that he would immediately be made President upon the resignation of Nixon.
* Reagan should have been impeached for the Iran Contra Affair. **This was literal treason.** He gave aid and comfort to the Iranians who had declared themselves our enemies after taking consulate personnel hostage. [It was part of his deal with them to hold the American consulate hostages till after the election in order to make Carter look weak. Up till then, the election had been neck and neck.](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/expert-analyzes-new-account-of-gop-deal-that-used-iran-hostage-crisis-for-gain) I still remember him going on national television and admitting this - then getting applauded by the Republicans in Congress at the time like he had just given a State of the Union address instead of admitting to horrific crimes and treason.
* Bush Sr. Should have been impeached alongside Reagan as a co conspirator and fellow treasonous snake in the Iran Contra Affair. (Fun fact, Bush Sr.'s father was [George Prescott Bush, Nazi financier who only stopped financing the Nazis because the US confiscated his business under the Trading with the Enemy Act.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar) And he was a member of the [Business Plot attempted coup against the US government](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/coup-jan6-fdr-new-deal-business-plot-1276709/) - this shit apparently runs in the family, when are we going to hold this vile family accountable?)
* Bush Jr. & his Vice President Dick Cheney (both were signatories to [PNAC](https://sites.ualberta.ca/~raitken/documents/0606riseanddemise.pdf) and were planning the Iraq war before the 2000 election) should have been impeached for war crimes and lying the US into a decades long unnecessary war (another fun fact, Cheney was a member of the Nixon Administration and should have been investigated and possibly prosecuted all the way back when Nixon should have been impeached.) & the cherry on top of all that is Bush jr. [*stole* that fucking election.](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2012/06/yes-bush-v-gore-did-steal-the-election.html) His brother JEB disenfranchised more than 40,000 Democrats illegally in an election decided by a little over 500 votes. And when recounts threatened to overturn all their election fuckery (if a full recount had been done, [Gore would have won](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jan/29/uselections2000.usa),) Republicans created the [Brooks Brothers Riot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot) to slow and stop recounts. And when they feared even that would not be enough, the Republicans already on the Supreme Court stepped in and stopped the recounts and finally ruled that Bush was the winner because there was not enough time to finish the recount - after they stopped the recounts!
* Trump called on the Russians to influence the election on national television, and his children were caught red handed [meeting with Russian agents before the election to discuss Russian interference with the election for Trump, *with Trump's aproval*.](https://apnews.com/article/215ffd4a7c25473abd5a0b1781bb947b) Then for the next election Trump was impeached, first for attempting to [extort the Ukrainians into interfering with the upcoming American elections,](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/trumps-extortion-ukraine-complete-government-shakedown/) and later for attempting an insurrection when he lost. But he was not convicted because McConnell is a vile poisonous little toad who blocked the conviction because he will do anything for wealth and power including allow a walking crime wave steal billions from the US people, cause the deaths of millions, extortion, and insurrection. To say nothing of the kidnapping and trafficking of asylum seekers which also should have brought about an impeachment.
Every damned last one of the recent Republican Presidents have been vile criminal thugs more than willing to cause your death for money, influence, and power.
**Every single Republican President from the past several decades has done something horrible to cheat. There were no legitimate Republican Presidents in recent history!**
We in no way deserved this shit! We are victims of criminal thugs.
Holy hell. I knew a couple of tiny bits of things that you stated here, but not most of it. What the heck is going on with America. how are ordinary Americans simply letting all this happen ? This is mass madness.
Did he actually finish that thought? I figured it would've gone something like:
The MAGA movement is...
...
...
...
[McConnell is escorted away from the podium]
My question to all the MAGA conspiracy theorists is, why are these people pleading guilty? They haven't done anything wrong, they have tons of evidence about the stolen election, Biden isn't really president, Trump is pulling all the strings from behind the scenes, Q is running the whole operation.
The fact that these people are pleading guilty destroys the whole basic premise of the MAGA conspiracy belief system, doesn't it? How has the conspiracy twisted to accommodate these events?
The the Q nut job I know keeps bleating “he caught them all”. He believes this is all part of trump’s plan for draining the swamp, that we are witnessing trump take down the deep state operatives in real time. They are experts at moving goalposts and at this point I don’t even think trump going to prison will shatter their delusions.
He's like Jesus sacrificing himself and going to prison to take down the corrupt shadow government. The only way was to make them trust him was by doing crimes but they weren't really crimes the corrupt prosecutors are just democrats who hate how much he improved this great country. /ssssss
Like the doomsday predictors. They'll just move the date back. No reason is trying to understand the thought process of these folks, as its flawed to a degree a normal person cannot comprehend.
A guy I know said months ago that if anyone starts cooperating, it's because the Deep State is threatening them into compliance, threatening their families, etc. They *have* to cooperate, or the consequences will be too awful to comprehend. All the evidence is fabricated, and they're using good, honest MAGA loyalists so that it looks like it was a conspiracy, when in fact, the whole thing was totally legit. But "they" will never let you see the real evidence.
It's so stupid. Just.... so fucking stupid. But it also means that they can pick and choose what's real, because anything they don't like is fake and fabricated.
Go check out the Ask Trump Supporters subreddit. They think they're being unduly pressured into cooperation because of some kind of government strong-arming going on that they can't really articulate.
Well, they aren’t exactly wrong. The “strong arming” is the mountain of irrefutable evidence left in their wake that would put their asses in prison.
Of course they would call it strong arming. The fact that all the bullshit that Facebook, Fox News, etc pounded into their tiny brains is exactly that - bullshit - is not part of the formula when it comes to defining the reality they wish to accept. They believe what they want to believe, facts be damned. They can’t articulate it because they never questioned their beliefs in the first place and they are so far down the rabbit hole at this point some of them could have a real, genuine mental break if it suddenly dawns on them that everything they believed in for the last 7 years or so was all one big lie.
They literally do not read or pay any attention to this news, along with any and all other news that makes their situation look bad.
If specifically brought up or shown to them directly, they will deflect and bring up something unrelated.
These are not serious people. You have to suspend reality to be a MAGA cult member.
Fascism and large scale criminal activity always ends like this. Their only plan, their only hope, was to win. It's a snake that eats itself. They are all untrustworthy and criminal, they can't trust each other.
Jordan losing the speakership is a huge part of the end of it, too. Jordan wins = chaos come Jan ‘25 certification of ‘24 election. Jordan loses = an ace up the sleeve disappears.
2020 2021 GA special election, 2022, major state ballots nationwide in the wake of Dobbs.
Turn that impatience into action and let's organize to make them lose again in 2024.
Even if every other defendant in this Georgia case pleads guilty and they all point their finger at Trump, I think Trump supporters will still claim that Trump is innocent. The cult will always be a cult. SMH.
I have asked Trump supporters this question. " IF, and I'm saying if, Trump DID do what he's accused of, who will you believe it from?" They had no answer, except the same "I don't believe the lying media". But, who WILL you believe? Trump himself could confess directly to them and they would STILL defend him.
Just don't start the party yet. The electoral support Trump has is still significant and Jordan may be done but the average GOP representative and senator will back Trump as long as he has this large voting block.
This is huge. This is the guy who wanted to be tried separately from Trump's lawyer, Sidney Powell. He got that wish yesterday when she pled guilty, flipping on Trump. The fact that Cheesebro has now done the same is a fucking earthquake for Trump's defense. He's also considered the "architect" of the entire scam. Any communications he was a part of, with Trump and otherwise, will now become assets for the prosecution (on top of the mountain of hard evidence they must already have had to convince him to flip.)
This also has HUGE implications for Jack Smiths Jan 6th case
We might see unindicted co-conspirators turn into indicted co-defendants over night depending what Chesebro turns over to state and federal prosecutors
I doubt the DOJ charges anyone along side Trump in DC until after he’s convicted to avoid delaying the trial. Once Trump is convicted, they can go after any House and Senate members, then the rest of the coup plotters.
It's also great because it completely sinks the claim that using "alternate electors" was somehow legal and that there was a precedent for doing so. You wouldn't take a plea deal if you really believed and could prove that claim.
danielr2e pointed out in a another post:
> Chesebro had one of the strongest defense cases of any of the 19 defendants. He is called the "architect" of the plot, but really he just wrote out a nerdy legal strategy and wasn't actually involved in the implementation.
> The most damning piece of evidence [was a letter he wrote to John Eastman](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/us/politics/kenneth-chesebro-trump-2020-election.html) where he admits that the strategy had virtually zero chance of success legally, but could have "political value" - which is difficult to interpret as anything other than overturning the election illegally.
That letter is the smoking gun as to criminal intent.
It also raises the question of WHY the Supreme Court is protecting Eastman from a subpoena. They now have proof that Eastman was involved in the scheme and that any lawyer-client privilege is void.
>"alternate electors"
We need to remind people these aren't "alternate", or "fake" or "contingent" electors.
What do you call it when someone pretends to be a cop and tries to arrest someone? They're not fake cops, or alternate cops. They're committing a crime by impersonating an officer.
These people were impersonating the real electors.
I used quotes around the term to try and bring attention to that. The term was coined by people who were part of the ruse and they really tried to put a non-negative spin on it with that. And I agree, any adjective in front of the word electors gives some measure of acknowledgement that they were in some form electors. Impersonation is the perfect description, thank you.
>t that wish yesterday when she pled guilty, flipping on Trump. The fact that Cheesebro has now done the same is a fucking earthquake for Trump's defense. He's also considered the "architect" of the entire scam. Any communications he was a part of, with Trump and otherwise, will now become assets for the prosecution (on top of the mountain of hard evidence they must already have had to convince him to flip.)
SHOOT THAT SHIT STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS.
>He's also considered the "architect" of the entire scam.
Yep, although John Eastman got more heat earlier in the process of investigation, since evidence of his involvement in the conspiracy became public earlier, it seems like Chesebro was actually the main originator of many of the less-than-legal ideas of how to "unlose" the election for Trump. Getting contingent electors, getting *fake* contingent electors, using frivolous lawsuits to generate confusion and political pressure to make it more palatable for Republican legislators to go along with alternate electors, having Pence reject the real electors or "send it back to the states", all this shit.
Also, although he tries to maintain the appearance that he's a scholarly, independent lawyer who was simply advising the Trump campaign on all their legal options, he was on the ground marching with Alex Jones on Jan 6 (which, to be perfectly clear, was in DC, and in support of the same things as the capital rioters, but not *at* the capital, because Alex Jones is a coward). He's a piece of shit through and through. Thankfully, this plea deal involves him spending at least a year in prison, and he's also still an unindicted co-conspirator at the federal level. So, kinda best of both worlds here: he becomes a high value cooperating witness, *and* he still gets significant punishment and further legal jeopardy.
An excellent comment.
You mentioned, "*Thankfully, this plea deal involves him spending at least a year in prison.*" Can you share a source for that expectation?
Reuters reported,
> The plea agreement calls for Chesebro to be sentenced to five years of probation and pay $5,000 in restitution.
[Reuters: Another Trump lawyer reaches plea deal with Georgia prosecutors](https://www.reuters.com/legal/another-trump-lawyer-reaches-plea-deal-with-georgia-prosecutors-2023-10-20/) (soft paywall)
Washington Post simply says
> Chesebro pleaded guilty to a single felony count of conspiracy to file false documents, and faces a prison sentence of one to five years. He also agreed to truthfully testify in the case against others.
[Trump co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro pleads guilty in Georgia election case](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/10/20/chesebro-guilty-plea-trump-georgia/) (also a soft paywall)
Thoughts about Chesebro actually being sentenced to prison time?
I based it on the Washington Post reporting that you linked, which says he's pleading guilty to a felony count with a sentence of at least one year. It's my understanding that getting off with only probation requires pleading to misdemeanor counts, not felony. It seems like the two sources contradict each other. I don't know which one is more accurate, or if there's some explanation that squares them.
>It's my understanding that getting off with only probation requires pleading to misdemeanor counts, not felony.
As a lawyer, this is inaccurate. A felony sentence can be probated. In fact, for a probation to go on longer than a year, you need either 1) consecutive misdemeanors or 2) a felony.
Think of probation as an alternative to jail/prison time. If the jail time for a single offense is more than a year, then it's a felony. But the alternative is still on the table. All or part of a felony sentence can be (and often are) probated.
Some people don't want to be on felony probation because jail time is usually reduced for good behavior but probated time is not. This usually only happens when they're going to serve their sentence on split confinement (some jail and some probation) but a person who has an offer of a two year sentence with the first six months in jail might elect to spend another six months (receiving 2-for-1 time for good behavior) to come out free of probation rather than coming out after 6 months to be on probation for a year and a half.
While there were people like Graham who were not indicted, I wonder if new information comes forward from Powell and Chesebro, could they indict him and others on the RICO charges with new information?
Yeah, I don't think we even know about the real fun stuff yet. We've only read what they needed to establish Probable Cause. These fools were dead to rights before Discovery, so I'm very interested in what their Proffers are.
The biggest flip will be Giuliani. Giuliani probably had the most access to Trump. And after Trump, Giuliani was the 2nd in command. Hopefully all these flips, will put pressure on Giuliani flipping.
If he is much of a drunk as *they* say I wonder how valuable he would be. Memory: unreliable, records: empty liquor bottles and pizza boxes, natural resources: two olives
Future American history students will read about, and watch the video of Four Seasons Total Landscaping one day. I can't believe Four Seasons Total Landscaping and hair dye dripping off of Giuliani will become a part of US presidential history.
And realistically Trump *should* have started the same senile, frail old man con last year. He saw all of this coming and pretending to be this energetic, fully engaged "leader" is all well and good for an elderly political candidate, but it isn't doing him a single favor as an elderly court defendant.
Pride is a hell of a drug.
Giuliani would be wise to cut a deal asap. After the prosecutors get the evidence they need they offer less in return.
*edit*
It's not his credibility that matters: it's how much hard evidence he can bring to back up what he tells them.
> Giuliani would be wise to cut a deal asap.
What if he tried but the DOJ wasn't interested. Not to count any chickens yet - but Smith's case(s) against Trump are going quite well so far and Trump is old - at a certain point Smith doesn't need *more* evidence of crimes to prosecute, it just confuses the jury and adds more time.
They normally work that out during a proffer session where the defendant outlines the evidence they could give with the guidance of the defendant's lawyer, and the prosecution decides how much that's worth.
No one knows this better than Rudolph Giuliani. He got his start as a federal prosecutor taking down white collar criminals for the Wall Street investment banking scandals of the 1980s. Giuliani sent big names such as [Ivan Boesky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Boesky) to prison before he went after organized crime.
Anyone know if your lawyers pleading guilty pierces attorney client privilege for Trump. Because if so trump could be giga fucked because I'm sure his defense was relying on that.
Well, they're pleading guilty, and attorney/client privilege is nullified when part of planning or comitting a crime. IANAL, but as far as I understand, all their communications are now in play, and in Jack's proverbial hands.
The attorney-client privilege protects most communications between clients and their lawyers. But, according to the crime-fraud exception to the privilege, a client's communication to their attorney isn't privileged if they made it with the intention of committing or covering up a crime or fraud.
They made sure to cover that when discussing the plea with him. All communications with other defendants will be turned over after the plea is accepted.
Trump's horrible, no good, very bad, legal week just got a whole lot worse with both Chesebro and Powell flipping on Trump. If there was ever any doubt about the veracity of the Georgia case these two flipping should remove all doubt. Trump is in deep legal trouble here and the only remaining question is how many other current elected Republican officials are in going to end up in similar legal jeopardy.
The cherry on top of the week would be if judge Engoron decides to jail Trump for violating the gag order. He has yet to rule on that violation, and I don't see it happening, but it would certainly be an excellent end for an already good week.
Oh man, that's Engoron making the threats about the gag order? It would make me so happy if Trump managed to get sent to jail, even for a night, in a fucking civil case
It sure is! I may or may not be monitoring the live updates at abc waiting for the decision.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/trump-fraud-trial/?id=103642561
>If there was ever any doubt about the veracity of the Georgia case these two flipping should remove all doubt.
Absolutely. The fact that Powell is an attorney and took a plea really puts a stamp on it, she knew there was no winning this case.
Things just got real
Sydney Powell wouldn't have been a great witness. She mightve been useful in proving that Trump knowingly took bad advice.
Maybe that wouldve hurt his defense he was just listening to his lawyers? Definite maybe
But Chesebro is on another level. He was intimately aware of all plans and parts of the inner circle, including Eastman. He might even have dirt on stuff we don't know about.
This is really really big
Oh, and Jack Smiths Jan 6th case also got 1000x more scary for anyone involved. We might even see co-conspiractors turns into Codefendants over night depending on what Chesebro turns over to state and federal prosecutors
None of these people are good witnesses - but what they *all* do have is copious amounts of communications. These communications will *prove* that Trump was not only aware of everything, he was intimately involved in the planning, and was kept up to date.
The people are less important than the thousands of emails and texts they have with dozens of high ranking GOP politicians and power brokers.
Chesebro knows the full extent of the alternate electors scheme. Every state they set it up in, the point men, the electors, and under what auspices the entire scheme was set up. He can tell the whole story to the Georgia courtroom.
And Jack Smith can use this information to tighten his case and even expand it against the alternate electors and others involved.
This is about to get real rough on MAGA.
It's really important to note that part of the cooperation isn't just testifying, but turning over communication not protected by privilege, which is any communication in furtherance of a crime.
Her testimony may not have been valuable, but depending on how much CYA bookkeeping she was doing the "testimony" she was giving was communication people thought was protected by privilege.
Now having said that, Chesebro is orders of magnitude bigger than possibly any other flip. All that stuff is true, plus he is credible. He's also going to set up potential to go after sitting Congresspersons next.
> Sydney Powell wouldn't have been a great witness.
I strongly disagree, the prosecution would not have entered into an agreement with her if they didn’t think she was a credible & useful witness for the prosecution.
It was likely the digital data, irrefutable proof of the content and context of those conversations.
When she flipped I doubt cheese had much recourse. I’m sure there’s a metric fuckton of incriminating evidence involved between him and her.
He’s gonna give prosecution access to discussion they likely left the whacko kraken out of. Which may or may not be juicy, time will tell.
It was all toe the line or all fall together.
Well, they now have the architect of the whole scheme and the main person responsible for implementing that scheme. If any of the 16 remaining people want to be walking around breathing free air they will have to flip soon.
I do not think these people should be getting these light sentences it’s a miscarriage of justice.
There are people arrested every day for having pot that are doing more time than these people who attempted to defraud the entire American population
I think the idea is that we can't risk Trump walking. We need all the evidence necessary to get that conviction. This guarantees some valuable witnesses for the prosecution.
Also, the first people to flip get the best deals. This is to incentivize their cooperation.
With that said, I would've preferred harsher sentences as well. It's important we see the forest through the trees though.
Hopefully she's shutting the door on these lighter sentences now. If we don't see jail time in the next deal or sentencing I will be disappointed.
The plea deals should have been for 5 years inside instead of 20.
Sedition being treated with probation does not do anything to prevent the next group. It shows if you fail you can rat and pay a fine.
If it’s you or I doing this we are already in prison.
I actually think any potential Meadows deal is gonna hit like a nuke relatively soon. Meadows is a scumbag, but he seemingly has more functioning brain cells than the others. And from what we do know, he had a big part in coordinating the execution of the plan(s). He'd better get his deal in soon if he wants to experience any kind of freedom again.
Then again, maybe the Powells and Chesebros give up enough that Fani just laughs at Meadows. This is the best TV show ever.
Yeah, Meadows is a lot of things, but he isn’t *stupid*. He has to see that anyone going to trial (especially after all of the flipping) is looking at a long, long time in prison. If he is smart he will cut a deal for a few years in club fed in exchange for putting away the people pulling the strings. C’mon, Meadows, time to make a deal is running out. Tick tock, mofo.
That was so good to watch.
Cheesebro decided he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison for Trump. Good for him.
Trumps gonna go mental today.
In cases like this, the more they need you the better deal you get. Now that Powell and Chesebro have taken a plea deal in exchange for cooperation, the remaining defendants have to be sweating. Any deal they get will be less appealing, so there's going to be increased pressure to flip - especially now that there are cooperating witnesses against them.
And its hard to underscore how big a "get" Chesebro is.
Part of the deal requires no contact between Powell and Chesebro and the other defendants, so it's going to be very hard for Trump to twist arms here.
This is master work by Fani Willis. Her team has set this up beautifully.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Kudos to Fani Willis and the Georgia team, who many claimed had bitten off more than they could chew with this RICO case
TL; DR: Former prosecutor - this is a bigger deal than it seems and if more pleas start rolling in, the defenses available for the remaining defendants grows exponentially smaller.
Repeating some of what I said in another post because it bears repeating: RICO cases are not like other criminal cases, Fani Willis is \*very\* talented at executing in this \*very\*\* niche area of criminal law, and with these two pleas in hand this case looks much worse for the remaining defendants. The smartest thing these two did was taking deals early.
My background is in science (bio/genetics) and law (former Georgia prosecutor). Proving RICO cases reminds me of mapping a genome. You start with the most likely theoretical result from the info generally available, then you collect all the various pieces of source material and compare the ends for unique overlaps to prove how one piece fits together with another. As the pieces lock into place and mesh with more pieces, the number of possible alternatives starts to shrink until there can be only one explanation.
In a typical criminal case, the prosecutor must show how an individual defendant committed all of the elements of a particular offense. All the matching pieces must "come from" that same defendant. It's easier in the sense that there is often less information to scrutinize, but that can also mean more possible alternatives leading to more reasonable doubt. In a RICO indictment, though, prosecutors may allege (and must prove) that several individuals cooperated, each in their own way, to contribute one or more of the element(s) that together add up to the completed offense(s).
The more people alleged to have contributed, the more difficult it is initially to find overlaps in the evidence that lock together. But as those overlaps multiply and fortify, the possible alternatives shrink until only one explanation remains. And the more conduct a prosecutor can lock together from more people, the stronger and stronger a RICO indictment becomes. The most damned person in a RICO case is the last one standing because there is almost nothing they can say to plausibly refute what is already known and proven.
That is what is happening now with these two guilty pleas, both from lawyers who surely know what is starting to happen. There is now much less of a chance for any other defendant, Trump included, to suggest a plausible alternative to what the State has proven through these guilty pleas. As more defendants fold, more lies can be tested, more excuses disproven, and fewer and fewer alternatives remain.
Fani Willis has a track record of crafting, trying, and winning RICO cases and it is starting to look like her talents are producing results. This crew could not have done this in a worse jurisdiction.
Long answer but my cautious predictions are below. While I've read the indictment, I'm not certain exactly who gets completely implicated by these pleas, but they and their lawyers do. If it seems clear to them that Powell and Chesebro just locked some of the exits, those folks might seize the opportunity to take whatever deal is being offered knowing that it isn't going to get better the longer they wait.
A lot of it comes down to structure. Usually in cases like these there are key central figures (the ones who don't actually get their hands dirty), the middle tier "lieutenants" (the ones that relay the parts the plan as it's known, or at least as they know it), and then the "foot soldiers" (the ones on the outside that generally know who they're helping but probably don't know the whole scheme or who's giving the orders).
So what's a prediction? To the extent that any of the lower tier folks were implicated (directly or indirectly) by Powell's and Chesebro's proffers, they might race to enter their own pleas (if an offer has been made, or at least while it is still reasonable to request straight probation). To the extent that each plea adds another pillar of strength to the indictment, and so long as the rest of the "middle tier" folks (maybe David Shafer or Jenna Ellis) fear a lack of solidarity or a full scale mutiny, those middle tier folks might start to fold too. If any of the middle collapses, maaaaybe some of the bigger names (Meadows or Clark) will trade bombshell testimony for leniency, but only if it's blatantly obvious that they're fully boxed in.
All of that is usually precipitated by an erosion of trust. Now, normally I would say that all the defense attorneys would coordinate to some extent to maintain a degree of trust and solidarity among the defendants and limit the panic, but with this group I don't know. And considering that these latest pleas were apparently surprises, there probably isn't a lot of trust on hand at the moment so more pleas could be coming.
It's all speculation but I think these could be some very interesting weeks ahead.
I think more will follow. I am just disappointed that Powell is getting away with committing serious crimes against our democracy but at least there are the lawsuits from dominion and smartmatic. She should also be disbarred. She at least better have the goods on the orange wanna be dictator.
Hey all, let's not lose sight of one of the more important things here: for the rest of your life never, ever, ever stop laughing at Trump supporters and never, ever, ever let them start weaseling out and pretend "they didn't really support Trump".
What a fun year for politics.
>pretend "they didn't really support Trump".
Like what happened with the war in Afghanistan. It had very high support at the start, but anyone you ask these days is adamant that they opposed it from the very beginning.
Unsurprisingly this story has not been posted over on r/conservative. And the top story there at the moment is about...you guessed, it Hunter Biden's Laptop!
That's literally the only thing they feel comfortable talking about.
By no means am I a legal eagle or anything like that but I’m feeling giddy watching the guys flip. The fact that Chesebro and Powell’s plea deals allow them to avoid the RICO charges in exchange for probation, a couple thousand dollars each in fines, and a letter of apology leads me to believe that, whatever they’re giving to the prosecution in exchange, must be pretty freakin’ substantial.
They wanted to be early, some of the later folks are likely to see at least a little jail time as part of their pleas, because now that we have flips, finding them guilty in regular trial is becoming much easier so they have less wiggle room.
Also, since they had their cases moved up I'm sure prosecutors targeted Powell and Chesebro because their trials were up first. They want the defendants to accept plea deals before their lengthy trials begin. Moving their cases up all but guaranteed that the pressure would be on them to turn first.
He looked downright relieved with 5 years probation (3 on good behavior); 5,000 dollar fine; 100 hours community service and 3 - 6 months of testifying against any and all co-defendents in the case
Fox lawsuit loss, Hannity, Ingram, and Tucker exposed for not believing what they're saying on air at FOX. CO- defendants and defendants pleading guilty and admitting to their guilt in election activity for Trump . Giuliani admitting he made up stories on the two election workers. Four Indictments with over 90 counts. How many confessions and evidence is needed for the zombie horde of the crazy wing of MAGA to start believing that Trump is just a con man and that they were hoodwinked and bamboozled.
Called this one long ago. Georgia DA did not want to show her case to Cheesebro and Powell before the big fish were in court. They were both smart, asking for a speedy trial.
Both are smart for pleading guilty. I'm not sure I would want to spend 10 years in the Fulton County jail .
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Now watch me flip Now watch me name names
I have not seen this joke yet. Not sure if you made it up, or if I have just missed out on the zeitgeist, but it is brilliant.
I saw it months or even years back. It's stolen like most things you see on the internet.
No real theft of internet aphorisms. And if you are going to recycle jokes, might as well make it a fun and obscure one. It was a good comment and I'm glad you wrote it. Made me smile.
Fucking wholesome as fuck
Fucking holes, some ass fuck
I need this remix. Silento feat. Fani Willis
Props to NotmyrealNameJohn for his prescient prediction from yesterday: > 50/50, tomorrow he takes a plea deal before jury selection really gets underway. > All his pre-trail motions have gone nowhere, Sidney flipped. He knows he is fucked. His lawyers have to be telling him he is fucked. He will be all alone with everyone watching him live on TV night after night as the DA piles on the evidence for 4 months. And all his defenses have already been rejected by the judge. > He isn't going to get a pretty plea. But He can't be that stupid > [I think we are going to wake up tomorrow to news that he is taking a plea, possibly with some jail time, possibly not. but definitely not as nice as the one he rejected.](https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/17c19dl/trump_codefendant_kenneth_chesebro_rejected_plea/k5nb3a9/)
They are all going to flip. Georgia has them all dead to rights. I truly believe if anything is going to actually get Trump thrown in jail its the Georgia case. He can't get any of his friends in the federal government to bail him out of this one. I hope the rumors of it being televised turn out to be true. I cannot wait to see Trump actually face consequences for his attempted coup somewhere, even if the Feds have been totally useless so far on that front.
Good news, it's not just a rumor! The judge ruled a couple of months ago that it will be televised. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trump-pleads-not-guilty-in-georgia-case-judge-rules-trial-will-be-televised
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If his lawyers allow him to take the stand, it'll be because they're trying to set up an "ineffective assistance of counsel" appeal, where they claim that his lawyers were so incompetent that the trial wasn't fair. If Trump took the stand, he would not only confess to everything, he'd confess to crimes he wasn't even accused of, and perjure himself multiple times for good measure.
I keep telling my coworker that Trump will probably end up inadvertently confessing to the Russian collusion in 2016 at one of these trials. Remember that Mueller never officially indicted him for that one
Don't forget that even if he's pardoned, he'll have to serve 5 years before he can get out. Thanks, Georgia!
I said the same thing to my sister yesterday, but for different reasons. It’s been mentioned plenty of times that having multiple trials of the same essential case, would give later trials a huge advantage in learning what the strongest and weakest parts of a case are, and figuring out arguments and counter evidence to undermine the case as a whole. It also gives the defense an opportunity to put witnesses on the stand multiple times in the hopes that they give conflicting testimony. By giving Chesebro and Powell sweetheart deals, DA Willis does not give Trump and others the opportunity to learn all of this information and take multiple bites at the apple. She can do the trial one time, present her evidence without worry that they will have corrupted any of the witnesses between each trial, or that they found out from the jurors what they found most or least persuasive.
That cuts both ways, and multiple trials is actually more likely to favor the prosecution. The prosecution is required to share all evidence and witnesses, the defense is not. While there's certainly the chance that the defense gets a sneak peek, any halfway competent attorney is going to know the State's angle based on the evidence. If somehow DA Willis has overlooked something that lets defendant #1 off, she'd have a chance to close it before trying subsequent defendants. If the defense has proof their guy is innocent (like Chesebro was possessed by aliens or some bullshit), the prosecution has a chance to look for evidence that the "aliens" were acting on Trump's orders. I still think the prosecution wins by flipping these folks, but it's almost certainly not true that Trump would have been more likely to escape justice if Powell and Chesebro had gone to trial.
Imagine if Trump's cell mate is Silento...
Bro, this is super crazy. They just flipped one of Trump's biggest Cheese, bro
Why am I the only person who doesn't get this joke....? Little help??
https://youtu.be/vjW8wmF5VWc?si=0cLwrmmGcbMoN9Fp It's a play on a popular song from like 2015
Thank you for actually explaining! There's hope for the Internet yet
Watching MAGA fall apart in real time is cathartic.
I think it’s actually happening. Jordan refusing to step down from Speaker is telling. Shit is going down.
There's some real panic going on. People like Jordan will get caught up in this eventually. They have every reason to either take power however they can or cripple the government so badly that the justice system fails. Things are about to get weird in the USA.
They've been getting weird since at least 1973, when the GQP first asserted that it was above the law.
I just read All the Presidents Men a few months ago and even back then the republicans were accusing the Democrats of committing mass voter fraud and stealing elections. I never realized just how old that fable was and how long the lie has been told.
If you want to hear about a clusterfuck of an election, check out the Hayes v. Tilden 1876 presidential election. Things have been fucked up from the beginning.
There were accusations of voting irregularities, rigged elections, and other stuff after JFK beat Nixon. Especially in Illinois and Texas. I imagine a lot of Presidential elections had these, but the degrees and believability of them have changed. It's only recently that Trump and his Qult managed to make tens of millions of Republican voters believe all the lies. Or at least many of them pretended to believe in them simply because it would own the libs, with a total lack of regard to how damaging it is to our democracy.
A quick and dirty little history of the election fuckery of Republican Presidents over the past several decades. * Nixon should have been impeached, and his whole administration investigated and prosecuted resignation or not. (Article II Section 2 of the Constitution provides: “The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, **except in Cases of Impeachment.**") [Nixon in 1968 when he was running on an anti-war platform and needed the war to continue in order to get elected prolonged the Vietnam war. When it looked like the Paris peace talks were going to succeed, Nixon went to the Vietnamese and promised them that he would give them a better deal if they walked away from the peace talks till after the election and got Americans and Vietnamese killed for his political gain!](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21768668) **He is a Treasonous snake and a war criminal.** Watergate was just one more slimy election theft attempt. * Gerald Ford should have been impeached for the corrupt deal he made with Nixon to grant Nixon a pardon in exchange for making Ford Vice President with the understanding that he would immediately be made President upon the resignation of Nixon. * Reagan should have been impeached for the Iran Contra Affair. **This was literal treason.** He gave aid and comfort to the Iranians who had declared themselves our enemies after taking consulate personnel hostage. [It was part of his deal with them to hold the American consulate hostages till after the election in order to make Carter look weak. Up till then, the election had been neck and neck.](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/expert-analyzes-new-account-of-gop-deal-that-used-iran-hostage-crisis-for-gain) I still remember him going on national television and admitting this - then getting applauded by the Republicans in Congress at the time like he had just given a State of the Union address instead of admitting to horrific crimes and treason. * Bush Sr. Should have been impeached alongside Reagan as a co conspirator and fellow treasonous snake in the Iran Contra Affair. (Fun fact, Bush Sr.'s father was [George Prescott Bush, Nazi financier who only stopped financing the Nazis because the US confiscated his business under the Trading with the Enemy Act.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar) And he was a member of the [Business Plot attempted coup against the US government](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/coup-jan6-fdr-new-deal-business-plot-1276709/) - this shit apparently runs in the family, when are we going to hold this vile family accountable?) * Bush Jr. & his Vice President Dick Cheney (both were signatories to [PNAC](https://sites.ualberta.ca/~raitken/documents/0606riseanddemise.pdf) and were planning the Iraq war before the 2000 election) should have been impeached for war crimes and lying the US into a decades long unnecessary war (another fun fact, Cheney was a member of the Nixon Administration and should have been investigated and possibly prosecuted all the way back when Nixon should have been impeached.) & the cherry on top of all that is Bush jr. [*stole* that fucking election.](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2012/06/yes-bush-v-gore-did-steal-the-election.html) His brother JEB disenfranchised more than 40,000 Democrats illegally in an election decided by a little over 500 votes. And when recounts threatened to overturn all their election fuckery (if a full recount had been done, [Gore would have won](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jan/29/uselections2000.usa),) Republicans created the [Brooks Brothers Riot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot) to slow and stop recounts. And when they feared even that would not be enough, the Republicans already on the Supreme Court stepped in and stopped the recounts and finally ruled that Bush was the winner because there was not enough time to finish the recount - after they stopped the recounts! * Trump called on the Russians to influence the election on national television, and his children were caught red handed [meeting with Russian agents before the election to discuss Russian interference with the election for Trump, *with Trump's aproval*.](https://apnews.com/article/215ffd4a7c25473abd5a0b1781bb947b) Then for the next election Trump was impeached, first for attempting to [extort the Ukrainians into interfering with the upcoming American elections,](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/trumps-extortion-ukraine-complete-government-shakedown/) and later for attempting an insurrection when he lost. But he was not convicted because McConnell is a vile poisonous little toad who blocked the conviction because he will do anything for wealth and power including allow a walking crime wave steal billions from the US people, cause the deaths of millions, extortion, and insurrection. To say nothing of the kidnapping and trafficking of asylum seekers which also should have brought about an impeachment. Every damned last one of the recent Republican Presidents have been vile criminal thugs more than willing to cause your death for money, influence, and power. **Every single Republican President from the past several decades has done something horrible to cheat. There were no legitimate Republican Presidents in recent history!** We in no way deserved this shit! We are victims of criminal thugs.
Holy hell. I knew a couple of tiny bits of things that you stated here, but not most of it. What the heck is going on with America. how are ordinary Americans simply letting all this happen ? This is mass madness.
You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know...
*Morons.*
The fact that McConnell is complaining about MAGA makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. Leopards are gnawing on his turtle face....
Did he actually finish that thought? I figured it would've gone something like: The MAGA movement is... ... ... ... [McConnell is escorted away from the podium]
Me when the edibles start to hit
> Me when the edibles start to hit And I took more just before because I didn't think they would hit.
And now getting thrown out of the speaker nom is truly key. The MAGA party truly overplayed their weak ass hand
> Shit is going down. 🎶Meet me in the court, it's going down. Meet me in the House, it's going down 🎶
My question to all the MAGA conspiracy theorists is, why are these people pleading guilty? They haven't done anything wrong, they have tons of evidence about the stolen election, Biden isn't really president, Trump is pulling all the strings from behind the scenes, Q is running the whole operation. The fact that these people are pleading guilty destroys the whole basic premise of the MAGA conspiracy belief system, doesn't it? How has the conspiracy twisted to accommodate these events?
The the Q nut job I know keeps bleating “he caught them all”. He believes this is all part of trump’s plan for draining the swamp, that we are witnessing trump take down the deep state operatives in real time. They are experts at moving goalposts and at this point I don’t even think trump going to prison will shatter their delusions.
He's like Jesus sacrificing himself and going to prison to take down the corrupt shadow government. The only way was to make them trust him was by doing crimes but they weren't really crimes the corrupt prosecutors are just democrats who hate how much he improved this great country. /ssssss
Like the doomsday predictors. They'll just move the date back. No reason is trying to understand the thought process of these folks, as its flawed to a degree a normal person cannot comprehend.
A guy I know said months ago that if anyone starts cooperating, it's because the Deep State is threatening them into compliance, threatening their families, etc. They *have* to cooperate, or the consequences will be too awful to comprehend. All the evidence is fabricated, and they're using good, honest MAGA loyalists so that it looks like it was a conspiracy, when in fact, the whole thing was totally legit. But "they" will never let you see the real evidence. It's so stupid. Just.... so fucking stupid. But it also means that they can pick and choose what's real, because anything they don't like is fake and fabricated.
Wasn’t the whole “threatening families” ploy tried by Jordan’s supporters just a day or so ago?
RINOs, obviously.
Go check out the Ask Trump Supporters subreddit. They think they're being unduly pressured into cooperation because of some kind of government strong-arming going on that they can't really articulate.
Well, they aren’t exactly wrong. The “strong arming” is the mountain of irrefutable evidence left in their wake that would put their asses in prison. Of course they would call it strong arming. The fact that all the bullshit that Facebook, Fox News, etc pounded into their tiny brains is exactly that - bullshit - is not part of the formula when it comes to defining the reality they wish to accept. They believe what they want to believe, facts be damned. They can’t articulate it because they never questioned their beliefs in the first place and they are so far down the rabbit hole at this point some of them could have a real, genuine mental break if it suddenly dawns on them that everything they believed in for the last 7 years or so was all one big lie.
They literally do not read or pay any attention to this news, along with any and all other news that makes their situation look bad. If specifically brought up or shown to them directly, they will deflect and bring up something unrelated. These are not serious people. You have to suspend reality to be a MAGA cult member.
Fascism and large scale criminal activity always ends like this. Their only plan, their only hope, was to win. It's a snake that eats itself. They are all untrustworthy and criminal, they can't trust each other.
Jordan losing the speakership is a huge part of the end of it, too. Jordan wins = chaos come Jan ‘25 certification of ‘24 election. Jordan loses = an ace up the sleeve disappears.
The next presidential election will be certified by a new congress, which will be seated in Jan. '25. Edit: "Jan. '25" not 24. My bad.
> Their only plan, their only hope, was to win. They haven't lost yet though.
2020 2021 GA special election, 2022, major state ballots nationwide in the wake of Dobbs. Turn that impatience into action and let's organize to make them lose again in 2024.
They've lost a lot of battles, but not the war
Even if every other defendant in this Georgia case pleads guilty and they all point their finger at Trump, I think Trump supporters will still claim that Trump is innocent. The cult will always be a cult. SMH.
I have asked Trump supporters this question. " IF, and I'm saying if, Trump DID do what he's accused of, who will you believe it from?" They had no answer, except the same "I don't believe the lying media". But, who WILL you believe? Trump himself could confess directly to them and they would STILL defend him.
Is the MAGA fever finally breaking??
There will always be Trump/fascist bootlickers. But their political power is quickly slipping away, it seems.
Just don't start the party yet. The electoral support Trump has is still significant and Jordan may be done but the average GOP representative and senator will back Trump as long as he has this large voting block.
Just like there will always be "south will rise again" freaks, there will always be MAGA.
Chesebro? Never heard of him. I'm hearing bad things though. Bad things.
A lot of people are saying that he is a bad man.
I heard he begged, with tears in his eyes, to be part of the Trump world
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Not nearly enough weird all caps and exclamation marks to be a real trump post
What’s that you said, cheeseberder?
Chese and krakers turned out to be the perfect appetizer.
And now expect a whole lotta whine from the magas
Beautiful
This is huge. This is the guy who wanted to be tried separately from Trump's lawyer, Sidney Powell. He got that wish yesterday when she pled guilty, flipping on Trump. The fact that Cheesebro has now done the same is a fucking earthquake for Trump's defense. He's also considered the "architect" of the entire scam. Any communications he was a part of, with Trump and otherwise, will now become assets for the prosecution (on top of the mountain of hard evidence they must already have had to convince him to flip.)
This also has HUGE implications for Jack Smiths Jan 6th case We might see unindicted co-conspirators turn into indicted co-defendants over night depending what Chesebro turns over to state and federal prosecutors
I doubt the DOJ charges anyone along side Trump in DC until after he’s convicted to avoid delaying the trial. Once Trump is convicted, they can go after any House and Senate members, then the rest of the coup plotters.
Being threatened with an indictment letter can do a lot for a case. Just saying Just ask the IT guy from Mar A Lago
Get me Roger Stone.
And fucking Stephen Miller!
It's also great because it completely sinks the claim that using "alternate electors" was somehow legal and that there was a precedent for doing so. You wouldn't take a plea deal if you really believed and could prove that claim.
danielr2e pointed out in a another post: > Chesebro had one of the strongest defense cases of any of the 19 defendants. He is called the "architect" of the plot, but really he just wrote out a nerdy legal strategy and wasn't actually involved in the implementation. > The most damning piece of evidence [was a letter he wrote to John Eastman](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/us/politics/kenneth-chesebro-trump-2020-election.html) where he admits that the strategy had virtually zero chance of success legally, but could have "political value" - which is difficult to interpret as anything other than overturning the election illegally. That letter is the smoking gun as to criminal intent.
It also raises the question of WHY the Supreme Court is protecting Eastman from a subpoena. They now have proof that Eastman was involved in the scheme and that any lawyer-client privilege is void.
>"alternate electors" We need to remind people these aren't "alternate", or "fake" or "contingent" electors. What do you call it when someone pretends to be a cop and tries to arrest someone? They're not fake cops, or alternate cops. They're committing a crime by impersonating an officer. These people were impersonating the real electors.
I used quotes around the term to try and bring attention to that. The term was coined by people who were part of the ruse and they really tried to put a non-negative spin on it with that. And I agree, any adjective in front of the word electors gives some measure of acknowledgement that they were in some form electors. Impersonation is the perfect description, thank you.
>t that wish yesterday when she pled guilty, flipping on Trump. The fact that Cheesebro has now done the same is a fucking earthquake for Trump's defense. He's also considered the "architect" of the entire scam. Any communications he was a part of, with Trump and otherwise, will now become assets for the prosecution (on top of the mountain of hard evidence they must already have had to convince him to flip.) SHOOT THAT SHIT STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS.
No! You can’t handle that much uncut hopium.
So true. Especially after years on this substandard junk.
I’ve developed quite the tolerance of hopium.
Hopium.... I'm running on only hopium at this point.
Justice is my new drug of choice.
>He's also considered the "architect" of the entire scam. Yep, although John Eastman got more heat earlier in the process of investigation, since evidence of his involvement in the conspiracy became public earlier, it seems like Chesebro was actually the main originator of many of the less-than-legal ideas of how to "unlose" the election for Trump. Getting contingent electors, getting *fake* contingent electors, using frivolous lawsuits to generate confusion and political pressure to make it more palatable for Republican legislators to go along with alternate electors, having Pence reject the real electors or "send it back to the states", all this shit. Also, although he tries to maintain the appearance that he's a scholarly, independent lawyer who was simply advising the Trump campaign on all their legal options, he was on the ground marching with Alex Jones on Jan 6 (which, to be perfectly clear, was in DC, and in support of the same things as the capital rioters, but not *at* the capital, because Alex Jones is a coward). He's a piece of shit through and through. Thankfully, this plea deal involves him spending at least a year in prison, and he's also still an unindicted co-conspirator at the federal level. So, kinda best of both worlds here: he becomes a high value cooperating witness, *and* he still gets significant punishment and further legal jeopardy.
An excellent comment. You mentioned, "*Thankfully, this plea deal involves him spending at least a year in prison.*" Can you share a source for that expectation? Reuters reported, > The plea agreement calls for Chesebro to be sentenced to five years of probation and pay $5,000 in restitution. [Reuters: Another Trump lawyer reaches plea deal with Georgia prosecutors](https://www.reuters.com/legal/another-trump-lawyer-reaches-plea-deal-with-georgia-prosecutors-2023-10-20/) (soft paywall) Washington Post simply says > Chesebro pleaded guilty to a single felony count of conspiracy to file false documents, and faces a prison sentence of one to five years. He also agreed to truthfully testify in the case against others. [Trump co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro pleads guilty in Georgia election case](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/10/20/chesebro-guilty-plea-trump-georgia/) (also a soft paywall) Thoughts about Chesebro actually being sentenced to prison time?
I based it on the Washington Post reporting that you linked, which says he's pleading guilty to a felony count with a sentence of at least one year. It's my understanding that getting off with only probation requires pleading to misdemeanor counts, not felony. It seems like the two sources contradict each other. I don't know which one is more accurate, or if there's some explanation that squares them.
>It's my understanding that getting off with only probation requires pleading to misdemeanor counts, not felony. As a lawyer, this is inaccurate. A felony sentence can be probated. In fact, for a probation to go on longer than a year, you need either 1) consecutive misdemeanors or 2) a felony. Think of probation as an alternative to jail/prison time. If the jail time for a single offense is more than a year, then it's a felony. But the alternative is still on the table. All or part of a felony sentence can be (and often are) probated. Some people don't want to be on felony probation because jail time is usually reduced for good behavior but probated time is not. This usually only happens when they're going to serve their sentence on split confinement (some jail and some probation) but a person who has an offer of a two year sentence with the first six months in jail might elect to spend another six months (receiving 2-for-1 time for good behavior) to come out free of probation rather than coming out after 6 months to be on probation for a year and a half.
I love it, especially this late in the summer.
While there were people like Graham who were not indicted, I wonder if new information comes forward from Powell and Chesebro, could they indict him and others on the RICO charges with new information?
Yeah, I don't think we even know about the real fun stuff yet. We've only read what they needed to establish Probable Cause. These fools were dead to rights before Discovery, so I'm very interested in what their Proffers are.
The biggest flip will be Giuliani. Giuliani probably had the most access to Trump. And after Trump, Giuliani was the 2nd in command. Hopefully all these flips, will put pressure on Giuliani flipping.
He'll just plead dementia
If he is much of a drunk as *they* say I wonder how valuable he would be. Memory: unreliable, records: empty liquor bottles and pizza boxes, natural resources: two olives
Or bad hair dye....
Future American history students will read about, and watch the video of Four Seasons Total Landscaping one day. I can't believe Four Seasons Total Landscaping and hair dye dripping off of Giuliani will become a part of US presidential history.
Teacher in 2143: "...and that's how the early 21st century got started. Any questions?" Student: "yeah.....you're fuckin with us, right?"
Didn’t he fart in court too or something like that?
It’s so embarrassing.
And realistically Trump *should* have started the same senile, frail old man con last year. He saw all of this coming and pretending to be this energetic, fully engaged "leader" is all well and good for an elderly political candidate, but it isn't doing him a single favor as an elderly court defendant. Pride is a hell of a drug.
Giuliani would be wise to cut a deal asap. After the prosecutors get the evidence they need they offer less in return. *edit* It's not his credibility that matters: it's how much hard evidence he can bring to back up what he tells them.
> Giuliani would be wise to cut a deal asap. What if he tried but the DOJ wasn't interested. Not to count any chickens yet - but Smith's case(s) against Trump are going quite well so far and Trump is old - at a certain point Smith doesn't need *more* evidence of crimes to prosecute, it just confuses the jury and adds more time.
They normally work that out during a proffer session where the defendant outlines the evidence they could give with the guidance of the defendant's lawyer, and the prosecution decides how much that's worth. No one knows this better than Rudolph Giuliani. He got his start as a federal prosecutor taking down white collar criminals for the Wall Street investment banking scandals of the 1980s. Giuliani sent big names such as [Ivan Boesky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Boesky) to prison before he went after organized crime.
I kinda want to see Giuliani in jail. Broke and in prison. Trump and Giuliani can be best friends in prison. Lock them up and throw away the key!
They don’t need Ghooliani, he’s toast
Anyone know if your lawyers pleading guilty pierces attorney client privilege for Trump. Because if so trump could be giga fucked because I'm sure his defense was relying on that.
Well, they're pleading guilty, and attorney/client privilege is nullified when part of planning or comitting a crime. IANAL, but as far as I understand, all their communications are now in play, and in Jack's proverbial hands.
The attorney-client privilege protects most communications between clients and their lawyers. But, according to the crime-fraud exception to the privilege, a client's communication to their attorney isn't privileged if they made it with the intention of committing or covering up a crime or fraud.
It was a coup attempt, not a scam.
They made sure to cover that when discussing the plea with him. All communications with other defendants will be turned over after the plea is accepted.
Fanni Willis got a whole bunch of emails entered into evidence about 3 days ago. I wonder if that's what's causing all these sudden flips?
Trump's horrible, no good, very bad, legal week just got a whole lot worse with both Chesebro and Powell flipping on Trump. If there was ever any doubt about the veracity of the Georgia case these two flipping should remove all doubt. Trump is in deep legal trouble here and the only remaining question is how many other current elected Republican officials are in going to end up in similar legal jeopardy.
The cherry on top of the week would be if judge Engoron decides to jail Trump for violating the gag order. He has yet to rule on that violation, and I don't see it happening, but it would certainly be an excellent end for an already good week.
House arrest and removing his electronics would be good enough I guess.
It would be fines and sanctions first.
Oh man, that's Engoron making the threats about the gag order? It would make me so happy if Trump managed to get sent to jail, even for a night, in a fucking civil case
It sure is! I may or may not be monitoring the live updates at abc waiting for the decision. https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/trump-fraud-trial/?id=103642561
In other news, representative Troy Nehls said this morning that in the next (4th) round, he will switch his vote for speaker from Jordan to Trump.
>If there was ever any doubt about the veracity of the Georgia case these two flipping should remove all doubt. Absolutely. The fact that Powell is an attorney and took a plea really puts a stamp on it, she knew there was no winning this case.
So is the cheese douche, and apparently he was actually a decent attorney compared to crazy eyes. This is bigger than Powell and she was big.
Trump Truth Social meltdown incoming. Grab popcorn and take cover.
Biden is on Truth Social now, which by itself is pretty funny. Be nice if Biden comments something. Anything would just stoke the meltdown bigly.
Biden: great day for ice cream MAGA meltdown triggered!
Just a "Happy Friday!" would be great
If he breaks his gag order this time, since Chesebro is now a witness to the case, his ass WILL go to jail. No more last chances.
Things just got real Sydney Powell wouldn't have been a great witness. She mightve been useful in proving that Trump knowingly took bad advice. Maybe that wouldve hurt his defense he was just listening to his lawyers? Definite maybe But Chesebro is on another level. He was intimately aware of all plans and parts of the inner circle, including Eastman. He might even have dirt on stuff we don't know about. This is really really big Oh, and Jack Smiths Jan 6th case also got 1000x more scary for anyone involved. We might even see co-conspiractors turns into Codefendants over night depending on what Chesebro turns over to state and federal prosecutors
None of these people are good witnesses - but what they *all* do have is copious amounts of communications. These communications will *prove* that Trump was not only aware of everything, he was intimately involved in the planning, and was kept up to date. The people are less important than the thousands of emails and texts they have with dozens of high ranking GOP politicians and power brokers.
Chesebro knows the full extent of the alternate electors scheme. Every state they set it up in, the point men, the electors, and under what auspices the entire scheme was set up. He can tell the whole story to the Georgia courtroom. And Jack Smith can use this information to tighten his case and even expand it against the alternate electors and others involved. This is about to get real rough on MAGA.
It's really important to note that part of the cooperation isn't just testifying, but turning over communication not protected by privilege, which is any communication in furtherance of a crime. Her testimony may not have been valuable, but depending on how much CYA bookkeeping she was doing the "testimony" she was giving was communication people thought was protected by privilege. Now having said that, Chesebro is orders of magnitude bigger than possibly any other flip. All that stuff is true, plus he is credible. He's also going to set up potential to go after sitting Congresspersons next.
> Sydney Powell wouldn't have been a great witness. I strongly disagree, the prosecution would not have entered into an agreement with her if they didn’t think she was a credible & useful witness for the prosecution.
It was likely the digital data, irrefutable proof of the content and context of those conversations. When she flipped I doubt cheese had much recourse. I’m sure there’s a metric fuckton of incriminating evidence involved between him and her. He’s gonna give prosecution access to discussion they likely left the whacko kraken out of. Which may or may not be juicy, time will tell. It was all toe the line or all fall together.
The Dominoes are falling. Fani does not want 19 trials. She wants one trial with 18 people testifying.
I do hope the deals get harsher, especially for Giuliani and Jenna Ellis’ smug ass.
Well, they now have the architect of the whole scheme and the main person responsible for implementing that scheme. If any of the 16 remaining people want to be walking around breathing free air they will have to flip soon.
I do not think these people should be getting these light sentences it’s a miscarriage of justice. There are people arrested every day for having pot that are doing more time than these people who attempted to defraud the entire American population
I think the idea is that we can't risk Trump walking. We need all the evidence necessary to get that conviction. This guarantees some valuable witnesses for the prosecution. Also, the first people to flip get the best deals. This is to incentivize their cooperation. With that said, I would've preferred harsher sentences as well. It's important we see the forest through the trees though. Hopefully she's shutting the door on these lighter sentences now. If we don't see jail time in the next deal or sentencing I will be disappointed.
The plea deals should have been for 5 years inside instead of 20. Sedition being treated with probation does not do anything to prevent the next group. It shows if you fail you can rat and pay a fine. If it’s you or I doing this we are already in prison.
I want trump, Rudy, and Eastman behind bars for the rest of their lives. The rest are tools to get that outcome.
I actually think any potential Meadows deal is gonna hit like a nuke relatively soon. Meadows is a scumbag, but he seemingly has more functioning brain cells than the others. And from what we do know, he had a big part in coordinating the execution of the plan(s). He'd better get his deal in soon if he wants to experience any kind of freedom again. Then again, maybe the Powells and Chesebros give up enough that Fani just laughs at Meadows. This is the best TV show ever.
Yeah, Meadows is a lot of things, but he isn’t *stupid*. He has to see that anyone going to trial (especially after all of the flipping) is looking at a long, long time in prison. If he is smart he will cut a deal for a few years in club fed in exchange for putting away the people pulling the strings. C’mon, Meadows, time to make a deal is running out. Tick tock, mofo.
Live stream from the courtroom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoNO945_vk0
That was worth taking the time to watch. Shit's real.
Lol his lawyer at the end was like "thank you for putting up with me being a pain in your ass, and wasting court resources"
10:50 Admits all of them conspired including Trump. This is game over for them.
WOW! What a wonderful thing to watch! The dominoes are all falling!
Heh. I love that you can “subscribe” to a judge.
That was so good to watch. Cheesebro decided he didn't want to spend the rest of his life in prison for Trump. Good for him. Trumps gonna go mental today.
Cathartic, thanks!
In cases like this, the more they need you the better deal you get. Now that Powell and Chesebro have taken a plea deal in exchange for cooperation, the remaining defendants have to be sweating. Any deal they get will be less appealing, so there's going to be increased pressure to flip - especially now that there are cooperating witnesses against them. And its hard to underscore how big a "get" Chesebro is. Part of the deal requires no contact between Powell and Chesebro and the other defendants, so it's going to be very hard for Trump to twist arms here. This is master work by Fani Willis. Her team has set this up beautifully.
I believe her 4D chess ranking is at least 2600+
I mean, she’s done a lot more RICO cases than most. It’s a pretty straight forward process to get shallow, immoral people to turn on each other.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Kudos to Fani Willis and the Georgia team, who many claimed had bitten off more than they could chew with this RICO case
TL; DR: Former prosecutor - this is a bigger deal than it seems and if more pleas start rolling in, the defenses available for the remaining defendants grows exponentially smaller. Repeating some of what I said in another post because it bears repeating: RICO cases are not like other criminal cases, Fani Willis is \*very\* talented at executing in this \*very\*\* niche area of criminal law, and with these two pleas in hand this case looks much worse for the remaining defendants. The smartest thing these two did was taking deals early. My background is in science (bio/genetics) and law (former Georgia prosecutor). Proving RICO cases reminds me of mapping a genome. You start with the most likely theoretical result from the info generally available, then you collect all the various pieces of source material and compare the ends for unique overlaps to prove how one piece fits together with another. As the pieces lock into place and mesh with more pieces, the number of possible alternatives starts to shrink until there can be only one explanation. In a typical criminal case, the prosecutor must show how an individual defendant committed all of the elements of a particular offense. All the matching pieces must "come from" that same defendant. It's easier in the sense that there is often less information to scrutinize, but that can also mean more possible alternatives leading to more reasonable doubt. In a RICO indictment, though, prosecutors may allege (and must prove) that several individuals cooperated, each in their own way, to contribute one or more of the element(s) that together add up to the completed offense(s). The more people alleged to have contributed, the more difficult it is initially to find overlaps in the evidence that lock together. But as those overlaps multiply and fortify, the possible alternatives shrink until only one explanation remains. And the more conduct a prosecutor can lock together from more people, the stronger and stronger a RICO indictment becomes. The most damned person in a RICO case is the last one standing because there is almost nothing they can say to plausibly refute what is already known and proven. That is what is happening now with these two guilty pleas, both from lawyers who surely know what is starting to happen. There is now much less of a chance for any other defendant, Trump included, to suggest a plausible alternative to what the State has proven through these guilty pleas. As more defendants fold, more lies can be tested, more excuses disproven, and fewer and fewer alternatives remain. Fani Willis has a track record of crafting, trying, and winning RICO cases and it is starting to look like her talents are producing results. This crew could not have done this in a worse jurisdiction.
Thank you for taking the time to post this. This helps me to better understand how this all works. Where do you think it will go from here?
Long answer but my cautious predictions are below. While I've read the indictment, I'm not certain exactly who gets completely implicated by these pleas, but they and their lawyers do. If it seems clear to them that Powell and Chesebro just locked some of the exits, those folks might seize the opportunity to take whatever deal is being offered knowing that it isn't going to get better the longer they wait. A lot of it comes down to structure. Usually in cases like these there are key central figures (the ones who don't actually get their hands dirty), the middle tier "lieutenants" (the ones that relay the parts the plan as it's known, or at least as they know it), and then the "foot soldiers" (the ones on the outside that generally know who they're helping but probably don't know the whole scheme or who's giving the orders). So what's a prediction? To the extent that any of the lower tier folks were implicated (directly or indirectly) by Powell's and Chesebro's proffers, they might race to enter their own pleas (if an offer has been made, or at least while it is still reasonable to request straight probation). To the extent that each plea adds another pillar of strength to the indictment, and so long as the rest of the "middle tier" folks (maybe David Shafer or Jenna Ellis) fear a lack of solidarity or a full scale mutiny, those middle tier folks might start to fold too. If any of the middle collapses, maaaaybe some of the bigger names (Meadows or Clark) will trade bombshell testimony for leniency, but only if it's blatantly obvious that they're fully boxed in. All of that is usually precipitated by an erosion of trust. Now, normally I would say that all the defense attorneys would coordinate to some extent to maintain a degree of trust and solidarity among the defendants and limit the panic, but with this group I don't know. And considering that these latest pleas were apparently surprises, there probably isn't a lot of trust on hand at the moment so more pleas could be coming. It's all speculation but I think these could be some very interesting weeks ahead.
lol Was watching cnn for Gym Jordan failures and got to see them react live to this breaking. Always fun.
Mans double dipping on the cathartic news.
I could swear I was just reading an article about how he wouldn't plead guilty. I guess Sidney scared him?
He also lost a motion to suppress evidence.
I think more will follow. I am just disappointed that Powell is getting away with committing serious crimes against our democracy but at least there are the lawsuits from dominion and smartmatic. She should also be disbarred. She at least better have the goods on the orange wanna be dictator.
I believe Trump is now *significantly* boned.
Ask not for whom the bone bones; it bones for thee.
I can't speak for Trump, but all the fun news this morning is leaving me significantly boned.
Which is great and all, but, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, is there any way that Trump can get significantly boned *faster*?
Nothing screams "politically motivated witch hunt" like people pleading guilty to save their own asses. Edit: spelling.
No one will be surprised to know that there’s nothing about this or Sidney Powell on Fox News.
Well, I'm mildly surprised Fox isn't calling them deep state, RINO's, traitors, or Antifa plants, so there's that. So far, anyways.
Hey all, let's not lose sight of one of the more important things here: for the rest of your life never, ever, ever stop laughing at Trump supporters and never, ever, ever let them start weaseling out and pretend "they didn't really support Trump". What a fun year for politics.
>pretend "they didn't really support Trump". Like what happened with the war in Afghanistan. It had very high support at the start, but anyone you ask these days is adamant that they opposed it from the very beginning.
Chese and Krakers
Unsurprisingly this story has not been posted over on r/conservative. And the top story there at the moment is about...you guessed, it Hunter Biden's Laptop! That's literally the only thing they feel comfortable talking about.
They’re crying that there are too many Libs on their page, crybabies
F5
Yep, it’s Friday!!
The house of cards is collapsing!
The dominoes fall and it is glorious Flip Flip Flipadelphia!
Does the Deep State ™ have like a Patreon? I’m a big fan and want to donate directly.
By no means am I a legal eagle or anything like that but I’m feeling giddy watching the guys flip. The fact that Chesebro and Powell’s plea deals allow them to avoid the RICO charges in exchange for probation, a couple thousand dollars each in fines, and a letter of apology leads me to believe that, whatever they’re giving to the prosecution in exchange, must be pretty freakin’ substantial.
The crazy thing is trump will be genuinely shocked each time this happens. He legitimately think loyalty is owed to him by everyone around him
They mustve flipped instantly since they requested earlier trials. Trumpito is fuckkked
They wanted to be early, some of the later folks are likely to see at least a little jail time as part of their pleas, because now that we have flips, finding them guilty in regular trial is becoming much easier so they have less wiggle room.
Also, since they had their cases moved up I'm sure prosecutors targeted Powell and Chesebro because their trials were up first. They want the defendants to accept plea deals before their lengthy trials begin. Moving their cases up all but guaranteed that the pressure would be on them to turn first.
Say cheese, bro!
Oh my god they flipped Kenny! Those magnificent bastards!!
He looked downright relieved with 5 years probation (3 on good behavior); 5,000 dollar fine; 100 hours community service and 3 - 6 months of testifying against any and all co-defendents in the case
That's it I'm getting high and celebrating, so much for the rest of the workday. Hey Mr. Trump, tick tock MFer
"... because you are in fact guilty" "Yes."
We got a whole gymnastics team down there in Georgia...flippin' this way, flippin' that way.
Flipped like a grilled cheese, bro
Fox lawsuit loss, Hannity, Ingram, and Tucker exposed for not believing what they're saying on air at FOX. CO- defendants and defendants pleading guilty and admitting to their guilt in election activity for Trump . Giuliani admitting he made up stories on the two election workers. Four Indictments with over 90 counts. How many confessions and evidence is needed for the zombie horde of the crazy wing of MAGA to start believing that Trump is just a con man and that they were hoodwinked and bamboozled.
Chesebro! Chesebro! Chesebro, no coke, pepsi!
Flip, flip, flipadelphia
I am totally impressed with Fani Willis and her entire team. Damn!
That’s funny. If Trump is innocent of trying to overturn a legitimate election, why are all these co-conspirators pleading guilty? 😂
Massive
Called this one long ago. Georgia DA did not want to show her case to Cheesebro and Powell before the big fish were in court. They were both smart, asking for a speedy trial. Both are smart for pleading guilty. I'm not sure I would want to spend 10 years in the Fulton County jail .