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Well, that, and contradicting them and incriminating himself publicly like 5 minutes after the lawyers make their statements doesn't help either.

You'd think someone would want the case just for it's historic nature. Whoever takes the job is in the history books.

He had plenty of opportunities to give the documents back and either say "oops, how'd that get there" or even do something outrageous like return it and then try to blame it on Obama, but instead he repeatedly double down on "the rules don't apply to me".

Possibly joking, but I really do think this is just another delay tactic. It's what he does, and it has worked so far.

That’s completely wild to me that a president can pardon himself. Wtf?

Did you read the indictment? If not, you should. It's not long, and it's easily digestible. They make a very solid case that Trump knowingly, intentionally held onto some of the most sensitive national security documents that we have, knew he wasn't allowed to have them, lied about having them, and tried to hide them even from his own lawyers. Meanwhile, he had them stored in some of the least secured places imaginable.

So what do you think the feds should do? Don't you think not holding someone accountable for that is terrible? And you realize they used a special counsel for the investigation - that's a role specifically designed to be independent from any political bias or manipulation.

Dude he stole highly, highly classified material, didn't give it back when asked, lost some it, and had it stored in a bathroom.

That's far beyond politically charged. Read the indictment. Not all charges brought to politicians are theater. This is absolutely one of those times

Anything around Trump is politically charged. That doesn't give him carte blanche to flagrantly break the law.

1)Read the indictment. There is a tape where he breaks the law and then acknowledges that’s it’s illegal and proceeds to break the law more. That single law has a sentencing guideline of 10 years.

https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/06/trump-indictment.pdf

2)special council is insulated from AG and WH

3)the judge is a trump appointee

4)It doesn’t set a precedent for shit. He broke the law. He will have his day in court.

He’s a former president. Obviously it’s going to be politically charged, that’s unavoidable. But what’s the alternative, you just get away with crimes because you ran a country once? It’s not as if Biden personally ordered his arrest…

If not a trial, then what should be done if he is suspected of a crime? Just ignore it?

I’m sorry, but do you believe that Joe Biden personally had trump arrested? lmao

What kind of dumbass opinion is this? Get elected into something and then you're immune to all crimes?... Fuck outa here.

Bias of? I've read the indictment and it seems pretty straightforward.

The other option is the disintegration of rule of law into rule by law, where rule is used by the powerful as a weapon to attack ordinary people, but they themselves are above the law.

The Roman Republic had a term for someone who is placed above the law to achieve a specific purpose with high priority (like holding an election): dictator. The office of dictator was rarely given out, and only for a limited period of time and for a specific purpose, because people were scared of abuse of the power of being above the law. When Julius Caesar consolidated enough political power to get whatever office he wanted, he chose dictator - and he literally brought down the republic, and tarnished the term 'dictator' to the extent that those that followed him chose to use the office of Imperator (later Emperor) to describe what they do instead of dictator.

So should a political candidate who lost an election but is running again be given the same powers as a dictator in the Roman Republic? And be allowed to act with absolute impunity? I'd argue no, if they break the law they should be held to the same standards as everyone else. Obviously, he should be given a fair trial, and all the usual protections to ensure that he is only convicted of things he actually did though.

What would unbiased accountability look like to you? If the roles were reversed, Trump would be shouting "Lock him up!" in front of crowds every day. No one is doing this to him now (except in jest), because it's expected that his trial be fair.

Read the full indictment. It's clear he understood what he was doing was illegal and he didn't care, and it's clear he was aware it was not in the country's best interest. He was given many chances to make it right and failed to do so. He's been treated more fairly than he'd have done to his political opponents.

He needs to be held accountable. He put himself above the country, and it can't happen like this again. If a federal trial in front of a red state jury isn't fair, I don't know what would satisfy you.

They feds gave him a massive amount of opportunity to remedy the issue and has not been charged at all in any way for anything that he gave back. It's only the stuff that he retained after over a year of lying and refusing for which he's being charged. They practically broke their backs twisting around and trying to be as accommodating as possible to give him every possible chance, vastly vastly more patience than if literally anybody else on the planet had done the same, and still he didn't hand it back.

Imagine if he walked out of Target with a TV he didn't pay for, but instead of tackling him or grabbing it they sat there watching as he loaded into is car. They sent him letters as he had people over and told everyone that he got it for free.

Seriously, Trump had classified marking envelopes on display at the bar in Mar-a-lago. We know for a fact he was showing documents to people like the Discord guy. He stole nuclear secrets. He stole national defense information. None of the crimes he's been charged with even require the documents to be explicitly classified, it's enough that the sensitive nature of the documents is sufficient to make possessing them a crime. And yet he kept them by the shitter.

I think it would set an extremely bad precedent if we made it that you can never arrest or try former presidents. Being able to try and hold the president to justice brings us closer to the national ideal of the president being a servant of the people, allowing them to act with legal impunity would bring us closer to the president being a dictator or a king.

Trump is neither Merrik Garland's nor Jack Smith's "political opponent". The DOJ is supposed to be an independent entity that does not take direction from the president. Conservatives seem to forget that because of the way Donny Double Indictments and Bill Barr ran the DOJ. Donald did crimes, this one is catching up with him. Yall need to hang up your jersey's eventually...

Oh god I wish there is a downvote button here.

Obviously the trial is going to be charged, as what is happening is unprecedented. Just because it's charged doesn't mean that it is driven by one party party wanting to wipe out their opposition.

In a country with proper separation of power, the juridical system is generally considered independent from the political executive branch. Obviously US has some exceptions to that rule with some judge appointments and such made by government officials, but generally the rule holds true.

The last few big name lawyers he hired required a massive retainer before they agreed to represent him, so I don’t think that’s the issue. It’s probably more about no lawyer wanting to put their reputation on the line since he is notoriously difficult client, who often doesn’t follow the advice of legal counsel but then turns around and blames them when his case inevitably tanks.