Trump is in New York for his court appearance
The Last 10 Years of Donald Trump’s Manhattan Spaga: The Case in New York City is Closer to a Killing Field than It Looks
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The studio apartment on Third Avenue and 75th Street in New York City was rented by an Ivy League graduate in 1971. The window looked out on an adjoining building’s water tank.
“I … tried to divide it up so that it would seem bigger. It was still a dingy apartment, no matter what I did. Even so, Donald Trump loved it and co-authored a book about it with Tony Schwartz. I was a kid from Queens who lived in Brooklyn and then had an apartment on the Upper East Side. … I became a city guy instead of a kid from the boroughs.”
He was the first New Yorker since FDR to serve in the White House. But Trump’s Manhattan saga could be coming to a close on Tuesday only a few miles from where it began, when he is scheduled to appear in a downtown courtroom to face criminal charges.
As with almost everything about the former president, there’s no real precedent for the latest chapter of his story — and no way to tell how it will end.
The indictment in New York is not the most serious of legal troubles facing Trump, and there are other more serious problems, such as the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in all of the cases. But once more, America’s political and legal systems, under a near-constant stress test since he came down the escalator in Trump Tower to launch his campaign in 2015, will be put under enormous pressure that is likely to only deepen the country’s internal estrangement.
Trump can continue running for the Republican nomination for president in 2024 and if he can delay the prosecution and is elected, Rodgers pointed out, “expect him to argue that the case against him must be dismissed as unconstitutional based on the Justice Department’s 2000 guidance that a president cannot be indicted ‘or tried’ while in office.”
There is no guarantee that Trump will work in court and his aggressive attacks on Bragg are not likely to work. Bragg must prove beyond a doubt that Trump committed crimes. But the former president is now in an new position for him – he’s subject to the rules of evidence and the schedule of a court that may be unmoved by his normal methods of attack, deflect and delay.
If a case is tried in a piece of the country where Trump isn’t very popular, you are likely to end up with at least one Trump voter on the jury, according to Honig. A judge would suggest that jurors put aside their political views and personal beliefs, but they are still subject to the same emotions, biases, and incentives as any person would be. The legal bar is higher at trial than in the grand jury.
In the political arena, “there is a distinct possibility that Trump not only survives but also thrives,” wrote Julian Zelizer. Trump is known to use moments of peril to his advantage, and his political career is built on punching back against the people and institutions he claims are unfairly attacking him. He fell back on the old strategy of being the victim of a corrupt establishment and taking his supporters along for the ride.
Henry has said that anyone who cares about fairness in the criminal justice system should be concerned that Donald Trump will be accused in a liberal jurisdiction. It’s likely that this is a federal case, according to all accounts.
“New York state’s entire judicial process is controlled by Democrats who could lose their positions in party primaries. Alvin Bragg, the district attorney overseeing the case, boasted during his campaign that he had sued Trump or his administration more than 100 times during his tenure in the state attorney general’s office, something he probably did to curry favor with primary voters who loathe Trump. Every New York state judge who would either try the case or hear an appeal is elected on a partisan basis, too. It would take a lot of courage for a judge to apply the law fairly and potentially ignore their voters’ desire for vengeance.”
The Case of an Elementary School Shooting in Nashville, Tennessee: When Do U.S. Armed Forces Become More Responsible for Their Crimes?
A school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, where five people were killed including three children, caused a lot of sadness, anger and frustration.
Jillian Peterson and James Densley have been studying the life histories of nearly 200 mass shooters since 1996. More than 80% showed the same warning signs of a crisis and almost all of them were suicidal. More than 85% of school mass killers communicated violent intent prior to the shooting and almost all had a high degree of planning. More than 75% of school mass shooters had a history of childhood trauma.
All of this raises the question of how to prevent shootings. And they argued that on this front, there is a positive development — a move to hold parents accountable in certain cases:
“The parents of a teenager who shot and killed four students at Oxford High School in Michigan in November 2021 are set to stand trial for involuntary manslaughter after an appellate court last week rejected their contention that the charges have no legal justification,” Peterson and Densely observed.
At the White House democracy summit hosted by Costa Rica, the Netherlands, South Korea and Zambia, President Joe Biden talked about the need to oppose autocratic governments.
The idea of the democracy summit is somewhat hollow because the Biden administration does an excellent job of trumpeting its commitments to democracy and women’s rights but it cavalierly abandoned 40 million Afghans to the Taliban a year and a half ago.
There’s a commission looking at the entire war in Afghanistan, and House Republicans are investigating the US’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is a double-edged sword for Republicans to examine the US record in Afghanistan since the Trump administration signed the agreement with the Taliban in 2020 setting the stage for the total US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/02/opinions/trumps-manhattan-story-opinion-column-galant/index.html
The Love Better Campaign: Can It Save Families from Adversarial Breakups in a Demonstration-Independent Israel?
The drama playing out in Israel this week offered an indicator of how protest can make a difference in a democracy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s back in office on the strength of an extreme right-wing coalition, has been pressing for an overhaul of the country’s judiciary to place it firmly under the control of the Knesset. The plan was easy for Netanyahu, wrote Frida Ghitis. It gave him a chance to escape his legal troubles since one of the bills recently passed would make it more difficult for a prime minister to be declared ineligible for office.
Netanyahu agreed to delay the reform until the next legislative term after nearly unbearable pressure. The crisis, however, is not over.”
“Breakups suck.” So goes the introductory video for a campaign that New Zealand is conducting to help people cope with relationships that have ended. “Our behavior doesn’t have to” follow suit, wrote Holly Thomas.
The love better campaign aims to help people recover from their break ups. The campaign includes a dedicated phone, text or email helpline run by Youthline, an organization dedicated to supporting people ages 12 to 24.”
A survey of 1,200 young adults showed that nearly half of them had experienced some form of self-destructive behavior such as self- harm, substance abuse, risky sexual behaviors and violence following rejection. It is wild that these campaigns are not common in other countries as well. It would improve our mental health. At most, it might save lives.”
“It’s about time,” wrote Alaimo. Without the tools and safeguards that the law provides, parents can’t protect their kids from potential dangers on social networks. Congress should follow Utah’s lead and enact a similar law to protect every child in this country.”
“Parents will also be able to access their kids’ accounts, apps won’t be allowed to show children ads, and accounts for kids won’t be able to be used between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. without parental permission.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/02/opinions/trumps-manhattan-story-opinion-column-galant/index.html
The Story of Jack Kirby and the History of Marvel: The Case for Donald Trump’s Indictment of a Supersymmetric Dark Energy
It will be highly gratifying if Putin’s words are spun in the West. Russia has already used nuclear weapons. It’s used them highly successfully without firing them, by trading on empty threats about potential nuclear strikes to very effectively deter the West from fully supporting Ukraine against Russia’s imperialist war.”
A superhero was introduced a year before the US entered World War II, with the first cover showing him punching Hitler.
Captain America was born more than 80 years ago. Roy Schwartz wrote a piece for CNN about his life and the story of Jack Kirby, the artist who adopted the name. Both were the children of immigrants.
As Schwartz noted, “After the war, superheroes fell out of favor and Kirby wrote and drew other genres of comics. When Stan Lee, by then the editor and head writer at what would soon be named Marvel, asked him to try superheroes again in 1961, the two created together the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man, Iron Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, Black Panther and countless others. This, combined with his artistic innovation, earned Kirby the moniker ‘King of Comics.’ He is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Donald Trump’s legal team will look to challenge “every potential issue” in his indictment once the charges are unsealed, an attorney for the former president said Sunday.
“We’re not doing anything at the arraignment because that would be showmanship and nothing more because we haven’t even seen the indictment yet. When asked by CNN’s Dana Bash if we would challenge the indictment, Joe took the stance that they would take it, dissect it and look into every potential issue.
The former President will learn the charges that the Manhattan grand jury has approved against him Tuesday, when he will face the court for the first time.
At times, the lawyers have vowed to ask for the charges to be dismissed. The full charges still aren’t known. And crucially, a judge will ultimately determine if the law is sound enough for the case to move forward to trial.
Former Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said in an interview with NBC News on Sunday, “We can speculate on what evidence we think they may or may not have, but even with the indictment published, we really will not know what the district attorney’s evidence is and what they would present at trial.”
The charges, which are expected to remain under seal until Trump’s arraignment Tuesday, relate to his alleged role in covering up hush money paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the days before the 2016 presidential election.
They are not false entries. He said that if they were, they had to cobble them together to try and get a felony.
The indictment of Donald Trump and the case for a new legal theory of venue changes: comment on Fareed Zakaria’s appearance on CNN with George Stephanopoulos
In an interview with George Stephanopoulos, he said there had been no discussion of that. It’s premature to worry about venue changes until we see the indictment and grapple with the legal issues.
Editor’s Note: Fareed Zakaria hosts “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” airing at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET Sundays on CNN. The views expressed here are his own. CNN has more opinion.
On the one hand, Trump is a walking advertisement for rich privilege. He has broken rules, standards and even laws for decades because he was convinced that the usual standards didn’t apply to him. He has been found guilty of tax fraud, been taken to court countless times over unpaid bills and has even stolen money from his own charities.
Those who watched Jon Stewart last week on “GPS” will remember that as his passionate argument. Jon was certainly right that the law should not care about the popularity of a person or the political effect of an indictment — and no one can really be sure what that effect will be in the long run anyway.
Bragg’s office will argue that it violates federal election laws, which means it is tied to a felony. The violation was looked at and decided against prosecution by the Justice Department under the presidencies of Trump and Biden. That is, as many experts have pointed out, a novel legal theory. I should note that Trump denies any wrongdoing.
Do Wall Street Journal Columns Have a Homogeneous Anti-Demarch? The Case of Donald Trump, Charged with a Crime
Given the circumstances, this case has the feel of zealous prosecutors minutely examining all possibilities to find some violation of the law. This upends the notion in Anglo-Saxon law that you first have a crime and then search for the criminal, rather than first looking at the person and searching to see if he or she has committed a crime.
Many Republicans have darkly prophesied that this is a watershed moment in American history and will unleash a torrent of indictments by state prosecutors against national politicians whom they dislike. Perhaps, but they seem to have forgotten that they have been instrumental in developing this weaponization of the legal system. The Wall Street Journal huffed and puffed last week, “As these columns have made clear, we believe any prosecution of a former President should involve a serious offense.”
Really? There were six volumes of editorials from the Wall Street Journal which endorsed the investigation of a sitting president. Whitewater was a failed land deal in which Bill and Hillary Clinton lost money, which caused a special prosecutor to look into the matter but he was unable to prosecute the Clintons due to their sexual relationship with White. A serious crime?
The standards of the Journal are probably the right one, and although Trump may face those charges in the future, he is likely to be right. In Georgia, he quite possibly could be` prosecuted for having threatened Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the 11,000-odd votes he needed to win that state in 2020. And then there is the January 6, 2021, uprising in which he could easily be charged by federal prosecutors with an effort to overturn an election.
The rule of law is not only to punish people but to build a system of self-government that is seen as legitimate. The hush money case will captivate the country. And if the rumors about the charges facing him are true, Trump is probably guilty. But will it create more or less faith in our judicial system and our democratic system? I’m concerned that this may be a case of trying the wrong man for the crime.
Donald Trump will be taking America through another grave drama this week when he appears in court charged with a crime.
The 45th president is expected to turn himself in on Tuesday in Manhattan, where he built his legend as a loud, arrogant, and successful real estate mogul, but which can now be used by the people of the state of New York to engineer his downfall.
A source familiar with Trump’s plans said he would leave Florida around noon and travel to New York around 3 p.m. The former president will stay at Trump Tower Monday night and is expected to depart New York immediately after Tuesday’s arraignment to head back to Florida, the source said.
Indicting an Ex-President for Running for Presidency: A Criminal Indictment and a Reconsideration of His Importance
Trump is in political territory because of a criminal indictment. His return to the spotlight is another twist in a saga that started with a double impeachment, false claims of a stolen election, and a mob attack on the Congress during an unruly four year presidency that pushed the nation to the point of exhaustion.
Some legal experts, without having seen the still-sealed indictment, have questioned whether a case that appears to revolve around infringements of accounting practices and possible campaign finance violations is sufficiently serious to merit the historical step of indicting an ex-president who is already running again.
He would not have been indicted if he hadn’t been running for presidency, because his poll numbers have gone up dramatically since the announcement of the indictment. Bragg has not commented on the case since it was indicted last week.
“Michael Cohen is a pathological, convicted liar, perjurer. He has lied to banks and the IRS. The lawyer for Cohen warned that a Trump defense shredding his client’s reputation wouldn’t work. “My old friend Joe Tacopina … (has) a wrong strategy if he thinks he’s building his whole strategy on personal attacks on Michael Cohen,” Davis said.
The case was sensitive and Trump warned of a potential death and destruction ahead of being charged, so police in New York have put in place intense security. Most of Trump’s supporters have not taken to the streets because of his calls for protests.
Donald Trump and the 2024 Republican presidential primary: Making America GREAT Again, and tomorrow is going to be the first extreme test for America despite the indictment
Many of Trump’s allies, critics and likely opponents in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race have similarly attacked Bragg before and after the indictment.
But former Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who announced his presidential campaign on Sunday, doubled down on his call for Trump to drop out of the race now that he is facing criminal charges.
In a statement on Thursday, Trump showed his anger at this brush with political fate, and it was similar to how he has responded to prior threats in his business and political career.
“I believe this Witch-Hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden,” he said. The people of the US know what the Radical Left Democrats are doing. Everyone can see it. So our Movement, and our Party – united and strong – will first defeat Alvin Bragg, and then we will defeat Joe Biden, and we are going to throw every last one of these Crooked Democrats out of office so we can MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
His approach means that this Tuesday is likely to be the start of a new, dramatic and divisive chapter in Trump’s political career and another extreme test for America.
The expected voluntary surrender of a former president and 2024 White House candidate will be a unique affair in more ways than one – both for the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the New York courthouse where he’ll be arraigned and for a nation watching to see how it’ll shake up the GOP presidential primary.
In the days leading up to his court appearance, Trump remained calm and focused despite the initial shock of the indictment.
The NYPD, Secret Service and court officers will coordinate the security for Trump’s appearance. There is a district attorney office located in the same building as the courthouse, and the Secret Service is going to accompany Trump there.
Trump will be booked by the investigators, which includes taking his fingerprints. Normally a mug shot would be taken. Because Trump’s appearance is widely known and authorities were concerned about the improper leaking of the photo, it was not certain if there would be a mugshot.
In most cases, defendants are booked and held in cells near the courtroom after they are arrested. But that won’t happen with Trump. After the former president is processed, he will be sent through a back set of hallways and elevators to the courtroom. He will walk into the courtroom from the public hallway.
CNN has asked a New York judge to unseal the indictment, so they can show Trump in the courtroom on Tuesday.
The news organizations are asking for a “limited number of photographers, videographers, and radio journalists to be present at the arraignment,” and said in the letter that they are making “this limited request for audio-visual coverage in order to ensure that the operations of the Court will not be disrupted in any way.”
Merchan, an acting New York Supreme Court justice, has sentenced Trump’s close confidant Allen Weisselberg to prison, presided over the Trump Organization tax fraud trial and overseen former adviser Steve Bannon’s criminal fraud case.
According to attorneys who have appeared before him, Merchan does not tolerate disruptions or delays and he’s known to maintain control of the courtroom even when his case draws attention.
During an interview on CNN Friday, Trump attorney Timothy Parlatore said that it was not easy for him to try a case against him but that he would likely be fair.
“I’ve tried a case in front of him before. He could be tough. I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be something that’s going to change his ability to evaluate the facts and the law in this case,” Parlatore said.
Tacopina told CNN’s Dana Bash Sunday that the former president will plead not guilty. His team “will look at every potential issue that we will be able to challenge, and we will challenge,” Tacopina said.
Donald Trump, the High Commission, and the Court House: Why America is Not Necessarily Supposed to Be This Way, Nor Should It Be?
According to sources close to Trump, his political advisers were discussing how to best campaign off of the indictment and how to paint it a political hoax.
The former president’s team presented him with polls showing him with a growing advantage over the governor of Florida in their head to head match-up. And his team says it has raised more than $5 million dollars since he was indicted Thursday.
The offices are more important than individual people. So for the sake of the office of the presidency, I do think that’s too much of a sideshow and distraction,” Hutchinson said in an interview on ABC News. “He needs to be able to concentrate on his due process.”
Trump is expected to plead not guilty. “On Tuesday morning I will be going to, believe it or not, the Courthouse,” he wrote on Truth Social. “America was not supposed to be this way!”
Trump Traveling to New York: What’s Next for a Criminal Detector? A New Jury Arreignment That Isn’t
A first court appearance for a criminal is an arraignment. For a normal defendant, that’s usually when one would appear for photographs, fingerprints and arrest paperwork, a process that typically takes several hours behind closed doors.
Then, they go before the judge to be heard about the charges. Defendants can enter a plea, most often “not guilty,” at this stage in the criminal process.
Logistical challenges are expected to be caused by his status as a former president. He has a large legal team and a Secret Service detail. Protests are expected. There will be media attention. Along with the daily operations of the state court office, will occur all of that.
“There’s a lot of external factors that just don’t happen for 99.99% of the cases we have,” said former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance in an NPR interview on Sunday. It will be challenging for the police department, the court officers, investigators and everyone else to make sure that things are running smoothly.
He is still entitled to the same due process as everyone else, says Kim Wehle, a University of Baltimore law professor.
When asked about the potential charges against him and penalties they would carry, she says that’s “way, way down the line,” telling All Things Considered there are plenty of hurdles to get through first.
There are many procedural, evidentiary and constitutional protections in place to make sure that that far-off question is fairly adjudicated.
Key to a trial will be the strength of the evidence presented by prosecutors, legal experts said. Michael Gerhardt is a law professor at the University of North Carolina.
“If I had to pick which side to be on, and I had to win to save my life, I would probably choose to be on the prosecution’s side simply because the jury pool in Manhattan is so incredibly against Donald Trump,” he said in an interview with NPR.
It would take a year to get a trial for most similar cases. He expects that the process will be delayed as much as possible.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/03/1167756756/trump-traveling-new-york-arraignment-whats-next-trial
He doesn’t want a public stage to be used to play a victim, but to make a point of selling his tame
He says that they won’t make him an offer that he would accept. He probably wants that public stage to be used to portray a victim, to have an audience.
