XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, rec.arts.tv, talk.politics.misc   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns, alt.atheism   
   From: nowomr@protonmail.com   
      
    Donald Trump Suggests Pleading Guilty If DOJ Will 'Pay Me Some Damages,'   
   Apparently Teeing Up Insanity Defense   
   Trump seems to think the government is in the practice of paying people to   
   go to prison.   
      
   Donald Trump took some time out of trying to find someone — anyone —   
   admitted in Florida willing to represent him in his federal criminal case   
   to talk to the folks at Politico about his plan to keep running from   
   prison if need be. Hey, Lyndon LaRouche did it! Trump’s take on the   
   indictment touched a lot of the standard talking points — sweating that he   
   didn’t do anything wrong… some garbage about the inapposite Presidential   
   Records Act… insults for the prosecutors — but buried in the wreckage of   
   this train wreck was this gem…   
      
       Trump predicted he would not be convicted and said he did not   
   anticipate taking a plea deal, though he left open the possibility of   
   doing so “where they pay me some damages.”   
      
   Ah, yes. That famous practice of paying defendants to plead guilty! Trump   
   doesn’t have a crackerjack legal team at this point, but in the off chance   
   he’s reading this, when a defendant agrees that they will go to prison “if   
   you make it worth my while,” the “worth my while” part is not cash, it’s   
   slightly less prison.   
      
   These comments suggest Trump thinks he’s looking at the federal equivalent   
   of a parking ticket. Which may well be the product of incredibly dumb   
   people in his echo chamber pretending that this is a Presidential Records   
   Act case even though it would cease to be that somewhere around the point   
   that he started showing Kid Rock national security secrets and talking to   
   his lawyers about pretending he didn’t have these documents. Allegedly.   
      
   Far from a federal misdemeanor, Trump’s looking at hard time for these   
   charges. The sentencing guidelines are not mandatory — and in the unlikely   
   event Judge Aileen Cannon stays on this case and allows it to reach the   
   jury she could blow off the sentence entirely — but just an individual 18   
   U.S.C. § 793(e) charge in the indictment would net Donald Trump 210 to 262   
   months of prison time, which is upwards of 22 years. Just Security notes   
   that with an acceptance of responsibility — which no one expects to see —   
   Trump can get it knocked down to 151 to 188 months. Other charges in the   
   indictment offer lighter base sentences, but the point remains that   
      
   Maybe he’s thinking about the Central Park 5 case that Trump infamously   
   threw himself into. After stirring up the racist frenzy with a full-page   
   ad demanding the death penalty for the ultimately innocent defendants. The   
   city ultimately paid the defendants millions to make up for the   
   confessions law enforcement bullied out of them. Perhaps in Trump’s mind   
   this is the model for a confession, though he’s skipping over the years   
   spent wrongfully confined in prison and the actually innocent part of   
   securing a cash settlement.   
      
   Is there an insanity defense to — let’s see here — espionage?   
      
   The answer is no. But until Trump finds himself a lawyer willing to take   
   on this case, there doesn’t seem to be anyone willing to tell him that.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)