Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
On May 22 2019 05:38 Doodsmack wrote: Not surprisingly, within the past 48 hours trump felt the need to tell lies to the country about his finances. It has been reported and documented for decades that, following his major bankruptcies that amounted to a failure of the bulk of his business enterprise, and for which he needed bailouts from family members in order to avoid total personal bankruptcy, banks ceased doing business with him because they lost over $1B.
Hey, years later Trump learned how to thread tweets. And he is still a terrible business person. But hey, at least he didn’t evade taxes or commit self dealing.
On May 22 2019 00:49 JimmiC wrote: xDaunt my question (other then Kwarks foundation question which keeps being missed) is, is there anything that could happen to Trump that would not be someone else's fault or a grand conspiracy against him?
I have little doubt that the foundation was audited when Trump was audited. What's good enough for the IRS is good enough for me.
I don't mean this disingenuously. I mean like if after his presidency if he gets arrested, charged and convicted would this be enough to show that he is criminal? Or would it be a politically motivated attack even after he is gone? Is there any event that could change your perception or is your lack of trust in the institutions of American so low and your Trust in Trump so high that you can never be swayed?
I don't see why he couldn't be legitimately arrested, charged, and prosecuted for something. I just don't know what that something is right now. What I find disturbing about the conversation is this wholly unsupported presumption on the part of people that Trump has done something criminal. You guys aren't looking at any of this stuff with a critical eye. You're getting gaslit by a political media and you don't even realize it.
That’s not how the IRS works with nfps. Your assumption that the transactions were reviewed and accepted is incorrect. What Trump did is a textbook example of self dealing. The facts of the case stand on their own merits.
1) Melania Trump bid $20,000 for a portrait of Trump. This created a $20,000 personal liability for Melania.
2) The Trump Foundation paid the $20,000, unduly enriching Melania at the expense of the Foundation.
3) The Foundation then stored it’s $20,000 painting by letting Trump have it.
This is textbook stuff. You can’t hide behind “if the IRS cleared it then I don’t have to apply any critical thinking to it at all”. I could talk a five year old through this and halfway through they’d interrupt me and state “so he stole $20,000 from the Foundation”. They wouldn’t need to abdicate common sense to the erroneous assumption that the IRS had reviewed that transaction.
xDaunt feels more like hes arguing like a defense attorney than sincerely.
The thing I think is important is this is a pretty naked example of the "if it's not illegal, it's not wrong" thinking that leads to our system taking the criminals and asking them whether they want their own activity to be criminal or not. Unless you're poor, in which case you're criminalized even for simply being poor.
Hey, if people are going to make the claim that Trump is a "criminal" despite the fact that he has neither been convicted nor charged, they should articulate why that is, including with reference to specific criminal statutes that have been violated. And this is precisely what I keep asking people around here to do, yet they repeatedly fail. All they do is baselessly bloviate in the face of indisputable facts that rebut their arguments. This Trump tax return business is a perfect example of this phenomenon.
Do you believe that things that are legislated to be criminal are inherently worse things to do than something that is legal?
Like are there actions that are legal but worse than (the most closely related) crimes in your view?
It seems like you're either under the impression that crimes are defacto worse than non crimes, or at least arguing from that perspective.
What is moral and what is legal are two distinct concepts. Generally speaking, codes of law exist to set forth what is illegal. While that which is illegal tends to also be immoral, not all that is immoral is illegal for a variety of public policy reasons. Only that which is illegal is prosecutable. Morality doesn't play into that consideration. This is a long way of saying that you're asking the wrong question.
On May 22 2019 00:49 JimmiC wrote: xDaunt my question (other then Kwarks foundation question which keeps being missed) is, is there anything that could happen to Trump that would not be someone else's fault or a grand conspiracy against him?
I have little doubt that the foundation was audited when Trump was audited. What's good enough for the IRS is good enough for me.
I don't mean this disingenuously. I mean like if after his presidency if he gets arrested, charged and convicted would this be enough to show that he is criminal? Or would it be a politically motivated attack even after he is gone? Is there any event that could change your perception or is your lack of trust in the institutions of American so low and your Trust in Trump so high that you can never be swayed?
I don't see why he couldn't be legitimately arrested, charged, and prosecuted for something. I just don't know what that something is right now. What I find disturbing about the conversation is this wholly unsupported presumption on the part of people that Trump has done something criminal. You guys aren't looking at any of this stuff with a critical eye. You're getting gaslit by a political media and you don't even realize it.
That’s not how the IRS works with nfps. Your assumption that the transactions were reviewed and accepted is incorrect. What Trump did is a textbook example of self dealing. The facts of the case stand on their own merits.
1) Melania Trump bid $20,000 for a portrait of Trump. This created a $20,000 personal liability for Melania.
2) The Trump Foundation paid the $20,000, unduly enriching Melania at the expense of the Foundation.
3) The Foundation then stored it’s $20,000 painting by letting Trump have it.
This is textbook stuff. You can’t hide behind “if the IRS cleared it then I don’t have to apply any critical thinking to it at all”. I could talk a five year old through this and halfway through they’d interrupt me and state “so he stole $20,000 from the Foundation”. They wouldn’t need to abdicate common sense to the erroneous assumption that the IRS had reviewed that transaction.
xDaunt feels more like hes arguing like a defense attorney than sincerely.
The thing I think is important is this is a pretty naked example of the "if it's not illegal, it's not wrong" thinking that leads to our system taking the criminals and asking them whether they want their own activity to be criminal or not. Unless you're poor, in which case you're criminalized even for simply being poor.
Hey, if people are going to make the claim that Trump is a "criminal" despite the fact that he has neither been convicted nor charged, they should articulate why that is, including with reference to specific criminal statutes that have been violated. And this is precisely what I keep asking people around here to do, yet they repeatedly fail. All they do is baselessly bloviate in the face of indisputable facts that rebut their arguments. This Trump tax return business is a perfect example of this phenomenon.
This conversation started with me asking you how the Trump Foundation isn't probable cause. Trump is a criminal is stretching that quite a bit to suit your narrative.
Again, probable cause of what?
You cite yourself as a non-expert on tax law and then someone was kind enough to explain to you how this works. The fact that these cases don't go to trial for criminal charges and end with Trump in jail doesn't mean it never happened and there is no probable cause for further investigation into his finances.
The foundation was shut down in December so it's not like they're digging back ten years for some non-issue here.
The problem is that you guys keep conflating issues. Remember, the foundation came up in the conversation in the context of Trump's tax returns. I presumed that the questions being asked about the foundation concerned tax issues. The governance/self-dealing issues concern NY state law -- not federal law. So again, I'm not seeing how the foundation issues give rise to probable cause for any type of federal action, including congressional inquiry. If you were caught stealing a candy bar from a gas station, the prosecuting authorities would not have probable cause to dig through your entire financial history. The same principle applies to Trump and the myriad of investigations being launched against him.
The Foundation issue is a failure of integrity and ethical standards when acting as a board member of a charity. How can his failure to not abuse his power as a board member for financial gain not be relevant to the question of whether he is abusing public office for financial gain? There’s literally nothing that could be more relevant.
A history of doing the exact thing they’re meant to watch out for is absolutely grounds for suspicion that he’s the kind of person who would do that thing.
A school board would be justifiably worried if someone who fucked kids as a Boy Scout leader became a teacher. Even if they hadn’t yet obtained evidence of him fucking kids as a teacher. They could justifiably say they wanted to look into the matter, especially if he refused to disclose the prior kid fucking and kept lying about meeting up with kids after class. Congress is justifiably worried that a guy who abused the public trust to steal a charitable foundation’s money might be abusing the public trust in public office. Enough to warrant checking that he’s not.
On May 22 2019 00:49 JimmiC wrote: xDaunt my question (other then Kwarks foundation question which keeps being missed) is, is there anything that could happen to Trump that would not be someone else's fault or a grand conspiracy against him?
I have little doubt that the foundation was audited when Trump was audited. What's good enough for the IRS is good enough for me.
I don't mean this disingenuously. I mean like if after his presidency if he gets arrested, charged and convicted would this be enough to show that he is criminal? Or would it be a politically motivated attack even after he is gone? Is there any event that could change your perception or is your lack of trust in the institutions of American so low and your Trust in Trump so high that you can never be swayed?
I don't see why he couldn't be legitimately arrested, charged, and prosecuted for something. I just don't know what that something is right now. What I find disturbing about the conversation is this wholly unsupported presumption on the part of people that Trump has done something criminal. You guys aren't looking at any of this stuff with a critical eye. You're getting gaslit by a political media and you don't even realize it.
That’s not how the IRS works with nfps. Your assumption that the transactions were reviewed and accepted is incorrect. What Trump did is a textbook example of self dealing. The facts of the case stand on their own merits.
1) Melania Trump bid $20,000 for a portrait of Trump. This created a $20,000 personal liability for Melania.
2) The Trump Foundation paid the $20,000, unduly enriching Melania at the expense of the Foundation.
3) The Foundation then stored it’s $20,000 painting by letting Trump have it.
This is textbook stuff. You can’t hide behind “if the IRS cleared it then I don’t have to apply any critical thinking to it at all”. I could talk a five year old through this and halfway through they’d interrupt me and state “so he stole $20,000 from the Foundation”. They wouldn’t need to abdicate common sense to the erroneous assumption that the IRS had reviewed that transaction.
xDaunt feels more like hes arguing like a defense attorney than sincerely.
The thing I think is important is this is a pretty naked example of the "if it's not illegal, it's not wrong" thinking that leads to our system taking the criminals and asking them whether they want their own activity to be criminal or not. Unless you're poor, in which case you're criminalized even for simply being poor.
Hey, if people are going to make the claim that Trump is a "criminal" despite the fact that he has neither been convicted nor charged, they should articulate why that is, including with reference to specific criminal statutes that have been violated. And this is precisely what I keep asking people around here to do, yet they repeatedly fail. All they do is baselessly bloviate in the face of indisputable facts that rebut their arguments. This Trump tax return business is a perfect example of this phenomenon.
This conversation started with me asking you how the Trump Foundation isn't probable cause. Trump is a criminal is stretching that quite a bit to suit your narrative.
Again, probable cause of what?
You cite yourself as a non-expert on tax law and then someone was kind enough to explain to you how this works. The fact that these cases don't go to trial for criminal charges and end with Trump in jail doesn't mean it never happened and there is no probable cause for further investigation into his finances.
The foundation was shut down in December so it's not like they're digging back ten years for some non-issue here.
The problem is that you guys keep conflating issues. Remember, the foundation came up in the conversation in the context of Trump's tax returns. I presumed that the questions being asked about the foundation concerned tax issues. The governance/self-dealing issues concern NY state law -- not federal law. So again, I'm not seeing how the foundation issues give rise to probable cause for any type of federal action, including congressional inquiry. If you were caught stealing a candy bar from a gas station, the prosecuting authorities would not have probable cause to dig through your entire financial history. The same principle applies to Trump and the myriad of investigations being launched against him.
So then you're arguing that the house doesn't have oversight over the executive branch and this query is out of their jurisdiction? I'm very confused about that one and going to need some additional information.
Trump was using the foundation to avoid paying taxes, that is federal taxes. The house sends a request to the IRS to investigate what Trump has or has not paid to this regard.
You've repeated several times about audits, but I doubt that Trump was audited while the government was shutdown or in the midst of tax season so it probably didn't happen after his foundation was shutdown. If he was and all clear, sending that record to congress seems like it would clear all this up.
On May 22 2019 00:49 JimmiC wrote: xDaunt my question (other then Kwarks foundation question which keeps being missed) is, is there anything that could happen to Trump that would not be someone else's fault or a grand conspiracy against him?
I have little doubt that the foundation was audited when Trump was audited. What's good enough for the IRS is good enough for me.
I don't mean this disingenuously. I mean like if after his presidency if he gets arrested, charged and convicted would this be enough to show that he is criminal? Or would it be a politically motivated attack even after he is gone? Is there any event that could change your perception or is your lack of trust in the institutions of American so low and your Trust in Trump so high that you can never be swayed?
I don't see why he couldn't be legitimately arrested, charged, and prosecuted for something. I just don't know what that something is right now. What I find disturbing about the conversation is this wholly unsupported presumption on the part of people that Trump has done something criminal. You guys aren't looking at any of this stuff with a critical eye. You're getting gaslit by a political media and you don't even realize it.
That’s not how the IRS works with nfps. Your assumption that the transactions were reviewed and accepted is incorrect. What Trump did is a textbook example of self dealing. The facts of the case stand on their own merits.
1) Melania Trump bid $20,000 for a portrait of Trump. This created a $20,000 personal liability for Melania.
2) The Trump Foundation paid the $20,000, unduly enriching Melania at the expense of the Foundation.
3) The Foundation then stored it’s $20,000 painting by letting Trump have it.
This is textbook stuff. You can’t hide behind “if the IRS cleared it then I don’t have to apply any critical thinking to it at all”. I could talk a five year old through this and halfway through they’d interrupt me and state “so he stole $20,000 from the Foundation”. They wouldn’t need to abdicate common sense to the erroneous assumption that the IRS had reviewed that transaction.
xDaunt feels more like hes arguing like a defense attorney than sincerely.
The thing I think is important is this is a pretty naked example of the "if it's not illegal, it's not wrong" thinking that leads to our system taking the criminals and asking them whether they want their own activity to be criminal or not. Unless you're poor, in which case you're criminalized even for simply being poor.
Hey, if people are going to make the claim that Trump is a "criminal" despite the fact that he has neither been convicted nor charged, they should articulate why that is, including with reference to specific criminal statutes that have been violated. And this is precisely what I keep asking people around here to do, yet they repeatedly fail. All they do is baselessly bloviate in the face of indisputable facts that rebut their arguments. This Trump tax return business is a perfect example of this phenomenon.
This conversation started with me asking you how the Trump Foundation isn't probable cause. Trump is a criminal is stretching that quite a bit to suit your narrative.
Again, probable cause of what?
You cite yourself as a non-expert on tax law and then someone was kind enough to explain to you how this works. The fact that these cases don't go to trial for criminal charges and end with Trump in jail doesn't mean it never happened and there is no probable cause for further investigation into his finances.
The foundation was shut down in December so it's not like they're digging back ten years for some non-issue here.
The problem is that you guys keep conflating issues. Remember, the foundation came up in the conversation in the context of Trump's tax returns. I presumed that the questions being asked about the foundation concerned tax issues. The governance/self-dealing issues concern NY state law -- not federal law. So again, I'm not seeing how the foundation issues give rise to probable cause for any type of federal action, including congressional inquiry. If you were caught stealing a candy bar from a gas station, the prosecuting authorities would not have probable cause to dig through your entire financial history. The same principle applies to Trump and the myriad of investigations being launched against him.
So then you're arguing that the house doesn't have oversight over the executive branch and this query is out of their jurisdiction? I'm very confused about that one and going to need some additional information.
Trump was using the foundation to avoid paying taxes, that is federal taxes. The house sends a request to the IRS to investigate what Trump has or has not paid to this regard.
Up is down. Yes is no. Checks and balances do not. Welcome to Trump's America.
On May 22 2019 00:49 JimmiC wrote: xDaunt my question (other then Kwarks foundation question which keeps being missed) is, is there anything that could happen to Trump that would not be someone else's fault or a grand conspiracy against him?
I have little doubt that the foundation was audited when Trump was audited. What's good enough for the IRS is good enough for me.
I don't mean this disingenuously. I mean like if after his presidency if he gets arrested, charged and convicted would this be enough to show that he is criminal? Or would it be a politically motivated attack even after he is gone? Is there any event that could change your perception or is your lack of trust in the institutions of American so low and your Trust in Trump so high that you can never be swayed?
I don't see why he couldn't be legitimately arrested, charged, and prosecuted for something. I just don't know what that something is right now. What I find disturbing about the conversation is this wholly unsupported presumption on the part of people that Trump has done something criminal. You guys aren't looking at any of this stuff with a critical eye. You're getting gaslit by a political media and you don't even realize it.
That’s not how the IRS works with nfps. Your assumption that the transactions were reviewed and accepted is incorrect. What Trump did is a textbook example of self dealing. The facts of the case stand on their own merits.
1) Melania Trump bid $20,000 for a portrait of Trump. This created a $20,000 personal liability for Melania.
2) The Trump Foundation paid the $20,000, unduly enriching Melania at the expense of the Foundation.
3) The Foundation then stored it’s $20,000 painting by letting Trump have it.
This is textbook stuff. You can’t hide behind “if the IRS cleared it then I don’t have to apply any critical thinking to it at all”. I could talk a five year old through this and halfway through they’d interrupt me and state “so he stole $20,000 from the Foundation”. They wouldn’t need to abdicate common sense to the erroneous assumption that the IRS had reviewed that transaction.
xDaunt feels more like hes arguing like a defense attorney than sincerely.
The thing I think is important is this is a pretty naked example of the "if it's not illegal, it's not wrong" thinking that leads to our system taking the criminals and asking them whether they want their own activity to be criminal or not. Unless you're poor, in which case you're criminalized even for simply being poor.
Hey, if people are going to make the claim that Trump is a "criminal" despite the fact that he has neither been convicted nor charged, they should articulate why that is, including with reference to specific criminal statutes that have been violated. And this is precisely what I keep asking people around here to do, yet they repeatedly fail. All they do is baselessly bloviate in the face of indisputable facts that rebut their arguments. This Trump tax return business is a perfect example of this phenomenon.
This conversation started with me asking you how the Trump Foundation isn't probable cause. Trump is a criminal is stretching that quite a bit to suit your narrative.
Again, probable cause of what?
You cite yourself as a non-expert on tax law and then someone was kind enough to explain to you how this works. The fact that these cases don't go to trial for criminal charges and end with Trump in jail doesn't mean it never happened and there is no probable cause for further investigation into his finances.
The foundation was shut down in December so it's not like they're digging back ten years for some non-issue here.
The problem is that you guys keep conflating issues. Remember, the foundation came up in the conversation in the context of Trump's tax returns. I presumed that the questions being asked about the foundation concerned tax issues. The governance/self-dealing issues concern NY state law -- not federal law. So again, I'm not seeing how the foundation issues give rise to probable cause for any type of federal action, including congressional inquiry. If you were caught stealing a candy bar from a gas station, the prosecuting authorities would not have probable cause to dig through your entire financial history. The same principle applies to Trump and the myriad of investigations being launched against him.
So then you're arguing that the house doesn't have oversight over the executive branch and this query is out of their jurisdiction? I'm very confused about that one and going to need some additional information.
Trump was using the foundation to avoid paying taxes, that is federal taxes. The house sends a request to the IRS to investigate what Trump has or has not paid to this regard.
Congress has oversight of the government and its agencies, not private matters. And to the extent that it has an investigatory power attendant to its legislative functions, that power is necessarily limited to matters over which it can legislate -- ie FEDERAL matters and not STATE matters.
Now, you're currently arguing that the foundation issue is not just a state matter, but it's also a federal matter because it implicates Trump's taxes. My response to this is two-fold. First, given that Trump has already been audited repeatedly by the IRS, there's virtually no chance of Trump having committed any federal tax crime. Second, I still believe that Trump's personal finances are private matters outside the realm of congressional oversight because they do not directly implicate government functions. This will likely be resolved by the Supreme Court, but I have a very hard time believing that they will grant Congress unfettered power to harass the executive.
Blitzkrieg0, almost none of the money in the foundation was donated by him. It’s a vehicle for him to sell influence to rich friends, Trump wouldn’t give perfectly good money to a foundation when there are plenty of prostitutes to pay.
It’s actually quite unusual for a family to give no money to their family foundation, Trump is a real outlier there, but it’s also quite unusual for the family to make their foundation host events at their businesses and charge them for it. None of this is normal.
I have little doubt that the foundation was audited when Trump was audited. What's good enough for the IRS is good enough for me.
[quote]
I don't see why he couldn't be legitimately arrested, charged, and prosecuted for something. I just don't know what that something is right now. What I find disturbing about the conversation is this wholly unsupported presumption on the part of people that Trump has done something criminal. You guys aren't looking at any of this stuff with a critical eye. You're getting gaslit by a political media and you don't even realize it.
That’s not how the IRS works with nfps. Your assumption that the transactions were reviewed and accepted is incorrect. What Trump did is a textbook example of self dealing. The facts of the case stand on their own merits.
1) Melania Trump bid $20,000 for a portrait of Trump. This created a $20,000 personal liability for Melania.
2) The Trump Foundation paid the $20,000, unduly enriching Melania at the expense of the Foundation.
3) The Foundation then stored it’s $20,000 painting by letting Trump have it.
This is textbook stuff. You can’t hide behind “if the IRS cleared it then I don’t have to apply any critical thinking to it at all”. I could talk a five year old through this and halfway through they’d interrupt me and state “so he stole $20,000 from the Foundation”. They wouldn’t need to abdicate common sense to the erroneous assumption that the IRS had reviewed that transaction.
xDaunt feels more like hes arguing like a defense attorney than sincerely.
The thing I think is important is this is a pretty naked example of the "if it's not illegal, it's not wrong" thinking that leads to our system taking the criminals and asking them whether they want their own activity to be criminal or not. Unless you're poor, in which case you're criminalized even for simply being poor.
Hey, if people are going to make the claim that Trump is a "criminal" despite the fact that he has neither been convicted nor charged, they should articulate why that is, including with reference to specific criminal statutes that have been violated. And this is precisely what I keep asking people around here to do, yet they repeatedly fail. All they do is baselessly bloviate in the face of indisputable facts that rebut their arguments. This Trump tax return business is a perfect example of this phenomenon.
This conversation started with me asking you how the Trump Foundation isn't probable cause. Trump is a criminal is stretching that quite a bit to suit your narrative.
Again, probable cause of what?
You cite yourself as a non-expert on tax law and then someone was kind enough to explain to you how this works. The fact that these cases don't go to trial for criminal charges and end with Trump in jail doesn't mean it never happened and there is no probable cause for further investigation into his finances.
The foundation was shut down in December so it's not like they're digging back ten years for some non-issue here.
The problem is that you guys keep conflating issues. Remember, the foundation came up in the conversation in the context of Trump's tax returns. I presumed that the questions being asked about the foundation concerned tax issues. The governance/self-dealing issues concern NY state law -- not federal law. So again, I'm not seeing how the foundation issues give rise to probable cause for any type of federal action, including congressional inquiry. If you were caught stealing a candy bar from a gas station, the prosecuting authorities would not have probable cause to dig through your entire financial history. The same principle applies to Trump and the myriad of investigations being launched against him.
So then you're arguing that the house doesn't have oversight over the executive branch and this query is out of their jurisdiction? I'm very confused about that one and going to need some additional information.
Trump was using the foundation to avoid paying taxes, that is federal taxes. The house sends a request to the IRS to investigate what Trump has or has not paid to this regard.
Congress has oversight of the government and its agencies, not private matters. And to the extent that it has an investigatory power attendant to its legislative functions, that power is necessarily limited to matters over which it can legislate -- ie FEDERAL matters and not STATE matters.
Now, you're currently arguing that the foundation issue is not just a state matter, but it's also a federal matter because it implicates Trump's taxes. My response to this is two-fold. First, given that Trump has already been audited repeatedly by the IRS, there's virtually no chance of Trump having committed any federal tax crime. Second, I still believe that Trump's personal finances are private matters outside the realm of congressional oversight because they do not directly implicate government functions. This will likely be resolved by the Supreme Court, but I have a very hard time believing that they will grant Congress unfettered power to harass the executive.
I'd be interested if those audit records show that he had to pony up some money to square up with the IRS because of the tax fraud he might or might not be committing. You keep saying he hasn't committed any federal tax crime, but as pointed out by several posters that isn't what happens so I think we'll just have to agree to disagree at this point.
On May 22 2019 07:48 KwarK wrote: Blitzkrieg0, almost none of the money in the foundation was donated by him. It’s a vehicle for him to sell influence to rich friends, Trump wouldn’t give perfectly good money to a foundation when there are plenty of prostitutes to pay.
It’s actually quite unusual for a family to give no money to their family foundation, Trump is a real outlier there, but it’s also quite unusual for the family to make their foundation host events at their businesses and charge them for it. None of this is normal.
I was not aware of this fact so thank you for the clarification.
On May 22 2019 00:49 JimmiC wrote: xDaunt my question (other then Kwarks foundation question which keeps being missed) is, is there anything that could happen to Trump that would not be someone else's fault or a grand conspiracy against him?
I have little doubt that the foundation was audited when Trump was audited. What's good enough for the IRS is good enough for me.
I don't mean this disingenuously. I mean like if after his presidency if he gets arrested, charged and convicted would this be enough to show that he is criminal? Or would it be a politically motivated attack even after he is gone? Is there any event that could change your perception or is your lack of trust in the institutions of American so low and your Trust in Trump so high that you can never be swayed?
I don't see why he couldn't be legitimately arrested, charged, and prosecuted for something. I just don't know what that something is right now. What I find disturbing about the conversation is this wholly unsupported presumption on the part of people that Trump has done something criminal. You guys aren't looking at any of this stuff with a critical eye. You're getting gaslit by a political media and you don't even realize it.
That’s not how the IRS works with nfps. Your assumption that the transactions were reviewed and accepted is incorrect. What Trump did is a textbook example of self dealing. The facts of the case stand on their own merits.
1) Melania Trump bid $20,000 for a portrait of Trump. This created a $20,000 personal liability for Melania.
2) The Trump Foundation paid the $20,000, unduly enriching Melania at the expense of the Foundation.
3) The Foundation then stored it’s $20,000 painting by letting Trump have it.
This is textbook stuff. You can’t hide behind “if the IRS cleared it then I don’t have to apply any critical thinking to it at all”. I could talk a five year old through this and halfway through they’d interrupt me and state “so he stole $20,000 from the Foundation”. They wouldn’t need to abdicate common sense to the erroneous assumption that the IRS had reviewed that transaction.
xDaunt feels more like hes arguing like a defense attorney than sincerely.
The thing I think is important is this is a pretty naked example of the "if it's not illegal, it's not wrong" thinking that leads to our system taking the criminals and asking them whether they want their own activity to be criminal or not. Unless you're poor, in which case you're criminalized even for simply being poor.
Hey, if people are going to make the claim that Trump is a "criminal" despite the fact that he has neither been convicted nor charged, they should articulate why that is, including with reference to specific criminal statutes that have been violated. And this is precisely what I keep asking people around here to do, yet they repeatedly fail. All they do is baselessly bloviate in the face of indisputable facts that rebut their arguments. This Trump tax return business is a perfect example of this phenomenon.
Do you believe that things that are legislated to be criminal are inherently worse things to do than something that is legal?
Like are there actions that are legal but worse than (the most closely related) crimes in your view?
It seems like you're either under the impression that crimes are defacto worse than non crimes, or at least arguing from that perspective.
What is moral and what is legal are two distinct concepts. Generally speaking, codes of law exist to set forth what is illegal. While that which is illegal tends to also be immoral, not all that is immoral is illegal for a variety of public policy reasons. Only that which is illegal is prosecutable. Morality doesn't play into that consideration. This is a long way of saying that you're asking the wrong question.
Perhaps the wrong question for you, but it's the question that distills the issue imo.
I don't care whether you think Trump is criminal (I think you do more or less and just expect people to make the argument), I am interested in whether you see him as moral?
On May 22 2019 01:11 KwarK wrote: [quote] That’s not how the IRS works with nfps. Your assumption that the transactions were reviewed and accepted is incorrect. What Trump did is a textbook example of self dealing. The facts of the case stand on their own merits.
1) Melania Trump bid $20,000 for a portrait of Trump. This created a $20,000 personal liability for Melania.
2) The Trump Foundation paid the $20,000, unduly enriching Melania at the expense of the Foundation.
3) The Foundation then stored it’s $20,000 painting by letting Trump have it.
This is textbook stuff. You can’t hide behind “if the IRS cleared it then I don’t have to apply any critical thinking to it at all”. I could talk a five year old through this and halfway through they’d interrupt me and state “so he stole $20,000 from the Foundation”. They wouldn’t need to abdicate common sense to the erroneous assumption that the IRS had reviewed that transaction.
xDaunt feels more like hes arguing like a defense attorney than sincerely.
The thing I think is important is this is a pretty naked example of the "if it's not illegal, it's not wrong" thinking that leads to our system taking the criminals and asking them whether they want their own activity to be criminal or not. Unless you're poor, in which case you're criminalized even for simply being poor.
Hey, if people are going to make the claim that Trump is a "criminal" despite the fact that he has neither been convicted nor charged, they should articulate why that is, including with reference to specific criminal statutes that have been violated. And this is precisely what I keep asking people around here to do, yet they repeatedly fail. All they do is baselessly bloviate in the face of indisputable facts that rebut their arguments. This Trump tax return business is a perfect example of this phenomenon.
This conversation started with me asking you how the Trump Foundation isn't probable cause. Trump is a criminal is stretching that quite a bit to suit your narrative.
Again, probable cause of what?
You cite yourself as a non-expert on tax law and then someone was kind enough to explain to you how this works. The fact that these cases don't go to trial for criminal charges and end with Trump in jail doesn't mean it never happened and there is no probable cause for further investigation into his finances.
The foundation was shut down in December so it's not like they're digging back ten years for some non-issue here.
The problem is that you guys keep conflating issues. Remember, the foundation came up in the conversation in the context of Trump's tax returns. I presumed that the questions being asked about the foundation concerned tax issues. The governance/self-dealing issues concern NY state law -- not federal law. So again, I'm not seeing how the foundation issues give rise to probable cause for any type of federal action, including congressional inquiry. If you were caught stealing a candy bar from a gas station, the prosecuting authorities would not have probable cause to dig through your entire financial history. The same principle applies to Trump and the myriad of investigations being launched against him.
So then you're arguing that the house doesn't have oversight over the executive branch and this query is out of their jurisdiction? I'm very confused about that one and going to need some additional information.
Trump was using the foundation to avoid paying taxes, that is federal taxes. The house sends a request to the IRS to investigate what Trump has or has not paid to this regard.
Congress has oversight of the government and its agencies, not private matters. And to the extent that it has an investigatory power attendant to its legislative functions, that power is necessarily limited to matters over which it can legislate -- ie FEDERAL matters and not STATE matters.
Now, you're currently arguing that the foundation issue is not just a state matter, but it's also a federal matter because it implicates Trump's taxes. My response to this is two-fold. First, given that Trump has already been audited repeatedly by the IRS, there's virtually no chance of Trump having committed any federal tax crime. Second, I still believe that Trump's personal finances are private matters outside the realm of congressional oversight because they do not directly implicate government functions. This will likely be resolved by the Supreme Court, but I have a very hard time believing that they will grant Congress unfettered power to harass the executive.
I'd be interested if those audit records show that he had to pony up some money to square up with the IRS because of the tax fraud he might or might not be committing. You keep saying he hasn't committed any federal tax crime, but as pointed out by several posters that isn't what happens so I think we'll just have to agree to disagree at this point.
The IRS absolutely will have someone prosecuted for tax crimes if the conduct is severe enough. You can speculate all you want about what the IRS did or did not do, but it is indisputable not only that Trump was audited by the IRS multiple times, but that he has not been charged for any crime in relation to those audits. Those facts speak volumes about where this nonsense about Trump's taxes is likely to go: no where.
Fun fact, when paying the $7 registration fee for Jr to join the Boy Scouts he went to the trouble of using Foundation money, and misclassifying it as a donation to the Boy Scouts, rather than use his own money.
Sure, we have an issue with the whole “stealing money from a charity you’re on the board of” and “fraudulently misclassifying expenses as donations” but what really gets me is the pettiness of it. A billionaire spending that much time and effort to steal $7 from a charity is just really fucking weird. It’s like if I learned Bill Gates secretly used Gates Foundation money to buy himself Starbucks gift cards. Sure, he’s a piece of shit, that’s not what the money is for. But also what the fuck?
On May 22 2019 07:59 KwarK wrote: Fun fact, when paying the $7 registration fee for Jr to join the Boy Scouts he went to the trouble of using Foundation money, and misclassifying it as a donation to the Boy Scouts, rather than use his own money.
Sure, we have an issue with the whole “stealing money from a charity you’re on the board of” and “fraudulently misclassifying expenses as donations” but what really gets me is the pettiness of it. A billionaire spending that much time and effort to steal $7 from a charity is just really fucking weird. It’s like if I learned Bill Gates secretly used Gates Foundation money to buy himself Starbucks gift cards. Sure, he’s a piece of shit, that’s not what the money is for. But also what the fuck?
Truthfully, many of the world's richest people are infamously spendthrift. You don't save billions by spending all of it.
However, this is also Trump, and I believe by now we should be well past the point of 'that's too petty for Trump'. There is nothing in the world too petty for Trump. The man became President and EVEN THAT isn't enough for him to stop spending half his time attacking his enemies instead of actually running the country.
I’m all about frugality and how $1,000 is made $10 at a time but for that to scale to a billion that’d be saving $10,000,000 by cutting your own hair or something.
A billion is just a different kind of thing. This is like a millionaire committing fraud for 0.7 cents. It’s not even about the money at that point, it’s some kind of mental disorder. Like it would be more rational for the millionaire to steal their neighbour’s newspapers to use as toilet paper to save money than what Trump did.
It’s way, way past frugality. It’s a fair bit past obsessive.
On May 22 2019 07:59 KwarK wrote: Fun fact, when paying the $7 registration fee for Jr to join the Boy Scouts he went to the trouble of using Foundation money, and misclassifying it as a donation to the Boy Scouts, rather than use his own money.
Sure, we have an issue with the whole “stealing money from a charity you’re on the board of” and “fraudulently misclassifying expenses as donations” but what really gets me is the pettiness of it. A billionaire spending that much time and effort to steal $7 from a charity is just really fucking weird. It’s like if I learned Bill Gates secretly used Gates Foundation money to buy himself Starbucks gift cards. Sure, he’s a piece of shit, that’s not what the money is for. But also what the fuck?
Truthfully, many of the world's richest people are infamously spendthrift. You don't save billions by spending all of it.
However, this is also Trump, and I believe by now we should be well past the point of 'that's too petty for Trump'. There is nothing in the world too petty for Trump. The man became President and EVEN THAT isn't enough for him to stop spending half his time attacking his enemies instead of actually running the country.
A bunch of rich people were sent checks of decreasing value over time as an experiment. At the end there was a check sent for $0.13 and only two people cashed it: An arms dealer, and Trump.
"Finally, he sent those 13 respondents a check for $0.13. This time, only two people cashed the check. One was an arms dealer. The other was Donald Trump, whom the magazine identified as a “demibillionaire casino operator and adulturer.”
Also, the "Trump files" a the bottom of the article are a treasure trove of tacky, weird, outrageous shit about Trump I never knew I needed in my life.
Also, a while back when I half-jokingly said I knew more about the underlying motivations of Russia/Trump in their conspiracy than Mueller did, I am more sure than ever that I was right. It's also funny that at the time, I joked about writing a book about the oil/organized crime related stuff that 90% of the people in this thread don't even know about or don't care about, because apparently Maddow has done just that. Her whole book doesn't revolve around it, but it looks like a good chunk does. I got scooped lmao.
"She shows how Russia’s rich reserves of crude have, paradoxically, stunted its growth, forcing Putin to maintain his power by spreading Russia’s rot into its rivals, its neighbors, the United States, and the West’s most important alliances. Chevron, BP, and a host of other industry players get their star turn, but ExxonMobil and the deceptively well-behaved Rex Tillerson emerge as two of the past century’s most consequential corporate villains. The oil-and-gas industry has weakened democracies in developed and developing countries, fouled oceans and rivers, and propped up authoritarian thieves and killers."
I have little doubt that the foundation was audited when Trump was audited. What's good enough for the IRS is good enough for me.
[quote]
I don't see why he couldn't be legitimately arrested, charged, and prosecuted for something. I just don't know what that something is right now. What I find disturbing about the conversation is this wholly unsupported presumption on the part of people that Trump has done something criminal. You guys aren't looking at any of this stuff with a critical eye. You're getting gaslit by a political media and you don't even realize it.
That’s not how the IRS works with nfps. Your assumption that the transactions were reviewed and accepted is incorrect. What Trump did is a textbook example of self dealing. The facts of the case stand on their own merits.
1) Melania Trump bid $20,000 for a portrait of Trump. This created a $20,000 personal liability for Melania.
2) The Trump Foundation paid the $20,000, unduly enriching Melania at the expense of the Foundation.
3) The Foundation then stored it’s $20,000 painting by letting Trump have it.
This is textbook stuff. You can’t hide behind “if the IRS cleared it then I don’t have to apply any critical thinking to it at all”. I could talk a five year old through this and halfway through they’d interrupt me and state “so he stole $20,000 from the Foundation”. They wouldn’t need to abdicate common sense to the erroneous assumption that the IRS had reviewed that transaction.
xDaunt feels more like hes arguing like a defense attorney than sincerely.
The thing I think is important is this is a pretty naked example of the "if it's not illegal, it's not wrong" thinking that leads to our system taking the criminals and asking them whether they want their own activity to be criminal or not. Unless you're poor, in which case you're criminalized even for simply being poor.
Hey, if people are going to make the claim that Trump is a "criminal" despite the fact that he has neither been convicted nor charged, they should articulate why that is, including with reference to specific criminal statutes that have been violated. And this is precisely what I keep asking people around here to do, yet they repeatedly fail. All they do is baselessly bloviate in the face of indisputable facts that rebut their arguments. This Trump tax return business is a perfect example of this phenomenon.
This conversation started with me asking you how the Trump Foundation isn't probable cause. Trump is a criminal is stretching that quite a bit to suit your narrative.
Again, probable cause of what?
You cite yourself as a non-expert on tax law and then someone was kind enough to explain to you how this works. The fact that these cases don't go to trial for criminal charges and end with Trump in jail doesn't mean it never happened and there is no probable cause for further investigation into his finances.
The foundation was shut down in December so it's not like they're digging back ten years for some non-issue here.
The problem is that you guys keep conflating issues. Remember, the foundation came up in the conversation in the context of Trump's tax returns. I presumed that the questions being asked about the foundation concerned tax issues. The governance/self-dealing issues concern NY state law -- not federal law. So again, I'm not seeing how the foundation issues give rise to probable cause for any type of federal action, including congressional inquiry. If you were caught stealing a candy bar from a gas station, the prosecuting authorities would not have probable cause to dig through your entire financial history. The same principle applies to Trump and the myriad of investigations being launched against him.
So then you're arguing that the house doesn't have oversight over the executive branch and this query is out of their jurisdiction? I'm very confused about that one and going to need some additional information.
Trump was using the foundation to avoid paying taxes, that is federal taxes. The house sends a request to the IRS to investigate what Trump has or has not paid to this regard.
Congress has oversight of the government and its agencies, not private matters. And to the extent that it has an investigatory power attendant to its legislative functions, that power is necessarily limited to matters over which it can legislate -- ie FEDERAL matters and not STATE matters.
Now, you're currently arguing that the foundation issue is not just a state matter, but it's also a federal matter because it implicates Trump's taxes. My response to this is two-fold. First, given that Trump has already been audited repeatedly by the IRS, there's virtually no chance of Trump having committed any federal tax crime. Second, I still believe that Trump's personal finances are private matters outside the realm of congressional oversight because they do not directly implicate government functions. This will likely be resolved by the Supreme Court, but I have a very hard time believing that they will grant Congress unfettered power to harass the executive.
Under this argument the Whitewater investigation should never have happened because it was a private matter. And the president can accept bribes to his families private business and Congress could never investigate. They could only ask the FBI, controlled by the executive, to do it.
What I’m saying is this argument is intellectually bankrupt and any freshman in college taking civics 101 can see right through it.
On May 22 2019 06:00 xDaunt wrote: By the way, reports are coming out that Mueller is refusing to testify before congress. I guarantee you that he knows that he's going to get hammered by republicans on various aspects of his report and investigation, particularly as it pertains to the Russia collusion narrative. Let's see if Nadler subpoenas him.
I can only imagine Mueller testifying under oath. Why such relative silence on the dossier claims? Why did the Trump tower meeting only get a footnote and line worth of mention as well? Why was the dossier's origination not investigated as possible attempts by Russia to influence the election?
And of course, wtf did he mean with the no-conclusion conclusion but kinda conclusion but prosecutorally nothing at all. What's he think his role is as prosecutor in a criminal justice system? What's it mean to air all the dirty laundry not rising to a crime, but leave the actually statement of such to the AG?
This is the part that may get Mueller in trouble. In Brennan-speak, there's a growing "corpus" of evidence showing not only that the FBI knew that the dossier was rotten before using it, but also that its information came directly from Kremlin-insiders who were very close to Putin -- notably Surkov. The recent revelations on the Kavalec notes are particularly illuminating on both of these points. And people who have dug deeper on the various players in the origins of the dossier have noted that basically everyone involved -- from FusionGPS, to the American three-letter agencies, to Halper, to the UK intelligence networks, to even the Russian sources (via the Skolkovo project and Uranium 1) -- have some connection to the Clintons. That's quite an interesting coincidence. Pay attention to what Nunes says here about Mifsud in his "hypothetical" (start at 3:10):
"Let's say he was working for some organization that was hired either by a spy agency, a contractor, or possibly a campaign."
I promise you that Nunes did not throw that out there casually.
Former Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., says there are unreleased transcripts of recorded conversations between FBI informants and former Trump campaign associate George Papadopoulos that “has the potential to be a game changer.”
In a Fox News interview with Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, the former House Oversight Committee chairman said when the FBI listens in on phone calls or sends in an informant wearing a wire then “there’s a transcript of that” and that “one in particular has the potential to actually persuade people.”
Getting back to Mueller, he would have had all of this stuff during the course of the investigation. If he kept it hidden during the prosecution, he's going to have some ethical issues to face at a minimum. At worst, he may be a conspirator with the other FBI/DOJ officials who were in on this. We'll find out soon enough.
On May 22 2019 06:00 xDaunt wrote: By the way, reports are coming out that Mueller is refusing to testify before congress. I guarantee you that he knows that he's going to get hammered by republicans on various aspects of his report and investigation, particularly as it pertains to the Russia collusion narrative. Let's see if Nadler subpoenas him.
I can only imagine Mueller testifying under oath. Why such relative silence on the dossier claims? Why did the Trump tower meeting only get a footnote and line worth of mention as well? Why was the dossier's origination not investigated as possible attempts by Russia to influence the election?
And of course, wtf did he mean with the no-conclusion conclusion but kinda conclusion but prosecutorally nothing at all. What's he think his role is as prosecutor in a criminal justice system? What's it mean to air all the dirty laundry not rising to a crime, but leave the actually statement of such to the AG?
This is the part that may get Mueller in trouble. In Brennan-speak, there's a growing "corpus" of evidence showing not only that the FBI knew that the dossier was rotten before using it, but also that its information came directly from Kremlin-insiders who were very close to Putin -- notably Surkov. The recent revelations on the Kavalec notes are particularly illuminating on both of these points. And people who have dug deeper on the various players in the origins of the dossier have noted that basically everyone involved -- from FusionGPS, to the American three-letter agencies, to Halper, to the UK intelligence networks, to even the Russian sources (via the Skolkovo project and Uranium 1) -- have some connection to the Clintons. That's quite an interesting coincidence. Pay attention to what Nunes says here about Mifsud in his "hypothetical" (start at 3:10):
Former Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., says there are unreleased transcripts of recorded conversations between FBI informants and former Trump campaign associate George Papadopoulos that “has the potential to be a game changer.”
In a Fox News interview with Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, the former House Oversight Committee chairman said when the FBI listens in on phone calls or sends in an informant wearing a wire then “there’s a transcript of that” and that “one in particular has the potential to actually persuade people.”
Getting back to Mueller, he would have had all of this stuff during the course of the investigation. If he kept it hidden during the prosecution, he's going to have some ethical issues to face at a minimum. At worst, he may be a conspirator with the other FBI/DOJ officials who were in on this. We'll find out soon enough.
EPT
