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Donald Trump The Trump Adminstration

Trump Messed Up Some Of His Pardons – And The Recipients Can Still Be Prosecuted

In the final days of his administration, Donald Trump handed out 74 pardons and commuted the sentences of 70 others who had been convicted and sentenced to federal prison.

NBC News notes that many of those who received pardons from Trump were close friends, former associates, or people he believed would somehow endear him to the rich assholes he’s known to hang out with at Mar-a-Lago:

“A list of 143 people included his former chief strategist and longtime ally Steve Bannon as well as his former top fundraiser Elliott Broidy. Then, with less than an hour to go before President-elect Joe Biden was set to be sworn in, Trump granted one last pardon: to Albert J. Pirro, Jr., the ex-husband of Fox News host and longtime ally Jeanine Pirro.”

But some of those pardons were so narrowly constructed and written that they leave the recipients open to prosecution by the Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Former Mueller investigation chief prosecutor Andrew Weissmann spelled out the mistakes Trump made in the pardons of two individuals, longtime Trump friend and confidant Roger Stone and Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, Paul Manafort, in an article he wrote for Just Security:

“The pardon for Paul Manafort (on Dec. 23, 2020), is illustrative. By its own terms, the pardon covers only the crimes “for his conviction” on specific charges and not any other crimes (charged or uncharged). Specifically, the pardon is solely for the crimes of conviction — eight in the Eastern District of Virginia and two in the District of Columbia. That leaves numerous crimes as to which Manafort can still be prosecuted, as in Virginia there were 10 hung counts. In Washington, the situation is even more wide open. In that district, Manafort pleaded to a superseding information containing two conspiracy charges, while the entire underlying indictment — containing numerous crimes from money laundering, to witness tampering, to violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act — now remains open to prosecution as there was no conviction for those charges.”

And then we have Roger Stone and a rouges gallery of other criminals:

“Manafort is not the only example of narrow Trump pardons that may be rectified by the incoming Attorney General. The same narrow pardons were provided to Special Counsel Office defendants Roger Stone (Dec. 23, 2020), George Papadopoulos (Dec. 22, 2020), and Alex van den Zwaan (Dec. 22, 2020), as well as the myriad other felons who received pardons or commutations on December 22 and 23, 2020. As noted, these defendants include murderers, corrupt politicians and law enforcement officers, and Philip Esformes, the single largest health care fraudster in history. These windows of opportunity are due in significant part to a practice followed by prosecutors’ offices across the country: permitting defendants to plead to some, but not all, of their crimes. That feature of these cases should now redound to the benefit of the government, as it may now permit the Department to see that justice is done.”

All of these people can be tried and convicted once again, and this time they won’t be getting a presidential pardon, so they’ll have to serve all of their sentences without the promise of a get-out-of-jail free card waiting for them if they agree to not testify against Trump.

As with everything he does, Donald Trump failed. He wanted to provide protection to those who didn’t testify against him, but all he did was make it more likely they’ll wind up in prison for much longer than they anticipated.

 

Categories
Donald Trump Elections WTF?!

Trump Is Moving From Florida To New Jersey – The Reason Is Bad News For All Of Us

Failed, one-term former President Donald Trump is on the move, preparing to head from Florida to New Jersey, and though the reason stated for his relocation is blamed on the hot South Florida weather as summer approaches, it seems Trump has ulterior motives.

Business Insider reports that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach normally closes after Memorial Day due to the intolerable heat and humidity, so Trump and his so-called “team” of advisers will be relocating to the Garden State:

“They’re moving the whole operation to New Jersey because they’re going to start doing more fundraising.”

The new location for loser Trump will likely be his Bedminster golf resort:

“Now it looks like the new base for Trump loyalists could be temporarily moved 1,200 miles away to his plush, east coast club.

“The club opened in 2004 and is about an hour from Trump Tower in Manhattan, with the most expensive membership reportedly costing $300,000 annually.”

Bedminster was supposed to be the location of next year’s PGA championship, but that golf tournament was canceled shortly after the January 6 Capitol insurrection which many blame Trump for helping to incite with his rhetoric just hours before the rioting began.

Also, if Trump is planning to do more fundraising that suggests that he is still attempting to gain control of the Republican Party so he can leverage that position to seek the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

But while Trump and his advisers may be eager to get him back into the political world, he’s also facing criminal charges and numerous lawsuits, any of which could wind up sending him prison for decades.

Also, it should be noted that the current governor of New Jersey is a Democrat, Phil Murphy, who will not hesitate to sign extradition orders if the former president is indicted in New York, Washington, D.C., or any other U.S. venue.

Trump may be heading north to escape the heat, but he could wind up going from the frying pan right into the fire.

 

Categories
Donald Trump Donald Trump Jr. Joe Biden Social Media

Don Jr. Humiliates Himself And His Old Man By Comparing The Failed Former POTUS To Joe Biden

Bless his coal-black, shrunken heart, Donald Trump Jr. just cannot avoid owning himself as he engages in being a dutiful son/sycophant for a father who couldn’t possibly care less about him and has long ago made it clear that Ivanka is his favorite child that he wanted to have sex with when she was only 13.

According to Junior, his father is far more accomplished in his four failed years as president than the current head of state, Joe Biden.

Don Jr. made his claim on Instagram, because apparently he doesn’t like Twitter now that the platform banned his father for being a lying, traitorous sack of shit:

How pathetic can one person be? Well there’s Don Jr. pathetic and everyone else is in a distant second place.

That was all it took for social media to light up with derision and mockery of Traitor Tot:

It’s going to be so much fun to watch in the months ahead as members of the Trump family start to turn on each other in exchange for a reduced prison sentence.

 

Categories
Donald Trump Elections Espionage

Quid Pro Quo: Treasury Department Proves Russia Stole The 2016 Election For Trump

The Latin phrase quid pro quo literally means “what for what” or “something for something,” and it defines a favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something.

Ever since 2016, there have been numerous investigations trying to determine if there was indeed a quid pro quo between Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign and Russia, especially the highest levels of Russian intelligence and the Kremlin.

Proof has now been laid out by the Treasury Department that carefully explains how the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia did indeed work in concert with one another to steal the election for Trump, making him an illegitimate president.

CNN reports that the link between the Trump camp and Russia can be found in the person of a man named Konstantin Kilimnik, who has deep links to the intelligence services of Russia:

“The new revelations about Moscow’s election meddling came as part of the Biden administration’s slate of sanctions against Russian actors on Thursday over Russia’s election interference as well as the SolarWinds hack and Russia’s ongoing occupation of Crimea.

“After then-President Donald Trump repeatedly denied or downplayed Russia’s election interference in 2016, senior Trump administration officials, including Trump himself, refused to acknowledge or elevate Russian operations in 2020 and sought to characterize China as the greater threat.

“The sanctions also included the US government’s acknowledgment for the first time that a Russian-linked intelligence operative named Konstantin Kilimnik provided information on Trump campaign polling strategy and data to the Russian intelligence services in 2016.”

The passing of polling information to Russian intelligence was especially helpful to the Kremlin because it allowed so-called “troll farms” to target specific audiences on social media sites in an attempt to turn voters away from 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and toward Trump. That was a huge advantage for Trump because his campaign’s digital operation relied on misinformation and lies about Clinton to place doubt in the minds of American voters.

The Biden administration’s new sanctions are some of the most extensive and far-reaching ever placed on any foreign government, NBC News noted:

“Under the order, the Treasury Department has blacklisted six Russian technology companies that provide support to the cyber program run by Russia’s intelligence services.

“Treasury also sanctioned 32 entities and individuals for ‘carrying out Russian government-directed attempts to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and other acts of disinformation and interference,’ as well as eight individuals and entities associated with Russia’s actions in Crimea.”

For the first time since President Obama left office, the Oval Office is occupied by a man who understands that Russia and Vladimir Putin are a direct and ongoing threat to U.S. national security.

Additionally, Treasury’s report also clears the way for the Department of Justice to file criminal charges against former president Trump and members of his 2016 campaign. Here’s hoping Attorney General Merrick Garland will do exactly that.

 

Categories
Crime Donald Trump The Trump Adminstration

Roger Stone Is In HUGE Legal Trouble For His Connection To Two Criminal Investigations

You probably recall that in the last days of his failed one-term administration, Donald Trump handed out pardons and commutations left and right. There were 74 pardons and 70 commutations, to be exact.

One of those legal gifts was bestowed upon Roger Stone, who has bee a close friend and confidant of Trump’s for decades. Stone was handed a get out of jail free card on a raft of charges:

“Specifically, the pardon is solely for the crimes of conviction — eight in the Eastern District of Virginia and two in the District of Columbia.”

However, Stone is a notorious scofflaw, a man who thinks the rules don’t apply to him because he has friends in high places who can wash away his many sins with the sweep of a pen. And it just so happens that Roger is once again facing charges in at least two cases.

First is Stone’s connection to the Oath Keepers, a bunch of domestic terrorists who served as a security detail for Stone during the days leading up to the Jan.6 storming of the U.S. Capitol which led to the deaths of five people, including a member of the Capitol Police Force.

Two of the Oath Keepers have just been added to an existing indictment, and that makes Stone a possible co-conspirator.

The Hill reports that the two men who were indicted this week are facing serious charges:

“The Justice Department announced on Thursday that Joshua James of Alabama and Roberto Minuta of Texas were charged by superseding indictment with conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.

“The men each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison if convicted.

“The conspiracy case against the Oath Keepers was first filed in January and now has 12 defendants.”

Since the DOJ is continuing to add people to the indictments already handed down, don’t be surprised if Stone is added, too, in the weeks ahead. As it stands now, it certainly looks like the Justice Department is indeed considering anyone who had contact with the Oath Keepers or their role in the Capitol insurrection to be part of a larger conspiracy. And that could result in Stone being a criminal defendant and also facing 20 years in federal prison.

There’s also Stone’s bizarre connection the unfolding saga taking place around Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who is under investigation by the DOJ for sexually trafficking a 17-year-old girl, along with several other crimes related to his relationship to the underage girl. Reportedly, a close friend of Gaetz’s is currently telling everything he knows about the matter to federal investigators.

Stone decided to insert himself into the Gaetz fiasco by telling unhinged conspiracy theorist Alex Jones that the congressman needs to go on the offensive:

“All of these stories that are maligning Matt Gaetz today are based on leaks. Where is the beef? Where are the facts? I don’t think there are any facts. I think this is a good old-fashioned smear.”

Stone has now managed to get himself into another conspiracy by offering advice to Gaetz, and he could be facing serious questions about what all he knows regarding the trafficking of the young girl Gaetz is alleged to have taken across state lines for the purposes of sex.

But this time, Roger Stone won’t be getting any pardons. Instead, he will be left to twist in the wind and face the consequences of his actions.

Though it sometimes takes awhile, karma always manages to catch up with the douchebags who most deserve it.