Tag Archives: indictment

crime news, legal news

Trump mug … for the ages

The critiques of Donald Trump’s mug shot taken at the Fulton County, Ga., sheriff’s office make me laugh.

Some folks suggest he rehearsed the pose he would strike. Others say it reflects a frightened criminal defendant. Still more believe Trump’s puss will energize his base and that his support will grow among the American voting public.

I happen to believe that Donald Trump’s support level has topped out. His base remains loyal, but only because it comprises the moronic MAGA dumbasses who have bought into the cult of personality he has cultivated.

I don’t know about how he came up with the pose we all have seen. Nor do I really care. I do know that the mug shot played on virtually every newspaper’s front page (what’s left of them) around the world today. That’s likely to Trump’s desire, given his penchant for publicity. Trump seems to ascribe to the notion that “there is no such thing as bad publicity.”

Whatever …

The mug shot will stand for the ages as the defining moment in Donald Trump’s political career. It likely will remind him every single day of his miserable life about the horrendous day he endured, having to fly to Georgia, then wait in a dank jail building, get the picture taken, have his fingerprints recorded and then he returned to his New Jersey resort.

He made history when he had the picture taken, being the first U.S. president or former POTUS to have been arrested and arraigned on a criminal indictment.

Nice goin’ … Donald.

legal news

Judge is in charge … period!

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan today told the entire world just who is in charge of Donald J. Trump’s life.

For starters, it is not Donald J. Trump. That role now falls on a jurist who was selected randomly to preside over a trial involving charges that the former POTUS conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Chutkan reportedly doesn’t suffer fools at all, let alone lightly. She delivered a ruling today that is both fair and it tells the criminal defendant, Trump, that he needs to cease hiding behind a “free speech” argument in his defense. He is free to say the 2020 election was rigged, she said, but he is not free to issue veiled threats against the prosecutors, jurors or the judge.

Chutkan told Trump that free speech is not “absolute” and that criminal defendants — such as Trump — have limits on statements they can make.

Thus, we have just received a sterling civic lesson on how an individual who prides himself on being “in charge” of all he sees, who once boasted that “I, alone” can fix the nation’s ailments, is now beholden to a federal judge.

Therein lies the wisdom of the founders who created a federal judiciary that has the authority to keep anyone — even a former president — on a short rhetorical leash.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news

Strike three … Trump!

Now we know what we have suspected all along, which is that special counsel Jack Smith has indicted Donald Trump on four counts of conspiracy to mount a coup to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

To think that Trump has bellowed since losing to President Biden that the election was “rigged,” that it is illegitimate.

Smith made monumental political history today. Is this reason to cheer? To high-five each other? To applaud the legal team that has assembled these incredibly detailed charges against a former president?

No. It is a time for serious reflection and for hoping the criminal justice system works its will.

I am not cheering tonight. I am trying to digest what has come forth.

Smith’s indictment reportedly is detailed. It is meticulous. It is historic in a way that many of us are having difficulty measuring. Trump is the first former POTUS ever indicted by the Justice Department. The indictment handed down today by a grand jury alleges that the former POTUS sought to overturn a free and fair election.

What in the name of democracy is up with that?

Jack Smith made it clear once again today that Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence, but said he intends to press for a “speedy trial.”

Trump continues to tell us he did nothing wrong on Jan. 6, 2021. If so, then let this individual mount his defense and seek to persuade a jury that he should be acquitted. Does an innocent man seek to delay the proceeding? No, yet Trump is almost certain to obstruct the progress of this prosecution.

What now? The nation is about to enter a historic chapter in its long and glorious story. Donald Trump stands indicted on allegations that he sought to overturn an election he lost. It was a fair and legal determination by American voters … and one of the counts of the latest indictment alleges that Trump sought to deny voters that sacred right.

This is no time to cheer and slap the backs of our friends and political allies. It is a time to take seriously what a duly constituted grand jury has determined, that a one-time president of the United States committed a criminal act against the very government he took an oath to “defend and protect.”

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, Donald Trump, national news, political news

Trump is a sure-fire loser!

All this media hype and hand-wringing over Donald J. Trump’s apparent skate toward the 2024 Republican Party presidential nomination has me on the brink of screaming at the top of my lungs.

I’ll refrain from that, but I will declare here — once again! — that Donald Trump will never enter the Oval Office again.

Let me say it another way. He will not be elected POTUS!

OK. I have said this before about this clown. He proved me, and millions of other prognosticators wrong in 2016 when he slipped past the conventional wisdom and squeaked out an Electoral College victory.

He then proceeded to embarrass himself, the country and endangered the lives of millions of Americans through his negligence in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He was impeached twice. He has been indicted by two grand juries and a third indictment is coming up damn soon. There will be others in store.

I am going to place a great deal of faith in the American electorate that rank-and-file Americans are not so stupid that they would actually send this guy back for another turn as head of state and commander in chief.

This individual is profoundly dangerous.

You may stop laughing at me at any moment. Yes, he defied every oddsmaker once already. However, I want to dredge up the saying that President George W. Bush once famously flubbed: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Are we really, seriously ready to send this soon-to-be-convicted felon back to power?

I think not!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news

Trump Fatigue sets in

You may choose to believe or disbelieve what I am about to say, but it’s true … which is that I am getting weary of all things Donald John Trump.

Yes! I want this to end! I want to stop thinking about what this idiot might do next to call attention to himself. I want to get on with serious policy discussions about serious policy differences between serious political leaders.

Trump offers nothing serious or sober to any of this. He offers only drama, chaos, narcissism, threats against democracy.

He is in the middle of multiple legal battles, none of which is likely to end well for him. If he’s convicted, say, of violating the Espionage Act in hiding those documents at his joint in Florida, he’ll fight the prison sentence that awaits him.

People such as me will comment on it, as we must. I don’t want to do it, but I will.

Just to be crystal clear: I do not believe Donald Trump will be elected POTUS. I remain dubious as to whether he will remain in the campaign for the White House.

He will remain on center stage, though, as an ex-POTUS and rabble rouser extraordinaire.

I just want him to vanish. Forever.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

Must stay on top of ex-POTUS

If only I could rid myself of having to say another word about the machinations of the 45th president of the United States.

Except that I cannot. Not while he remains at or near the top of the Republican Party presidential nomination hunt in 2024.

If only he’d go the hell away. He won’t. He lusts for attention and, boy howdy, he’s getting it now as the twice-indicted (for now!), twice-impeached ex-POTUS.

I am confident in predicting that there appear to be at least two more indictments coming his way. Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis is sending up signals that an indictment is imminent. All the ex-POTUS did there was demand that the Georgia secretary of state “find” enough votes to give the loser the state’s Electoral College tally.

The other indictment also appears set to come from the feds — again! — as special counsel Jack Smith continues his work on the ex-POTUS’s role in inciting the 1/6 assault on the government as Congress was preparing to ratify the Electoral College victory rolled up by Joe Biden in 2020.

All of this, I am saddened to say, puts bloggers and assorted commentators such as yours truly in an awkward place. We have to keep commenting on these goings-on. To be sure, I am not going to weigh in — per an earlier pledge — on every single campaign utterance that flies out of the crook’s pie hole.

I won’t apologize for believing I must comment on the issues surrounding this horribly unfit, immoral and disgraceful politician. I simply must explain myself and recognize three facts that are beyond dispute.

First, he is a former president of the United States. Second, he is the first POTUS ever indicted by the very government he once led. Third, those two facts make it impossible for me to ignore what’s happening — or what is about to happen — to a guy who ought to spend the rest of his miserable life in prison.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

Trump makes history!

Donald John Trump has made history, the kind of history that will be included in the first line of his obituary when that event arrives.

It will say he is the first former president of the United States indicted by a grand jury on allegations that he committed a crime.

Well … what now?

The law requires that the former POTUS show up to be charged formally. He will be fingerprinted, read his rights and will have his picture taken.

Oh … the allegation? The Manhattan, N.Y., grand jury says that he paid a porn start $130,000 to keep quiet about a one-night tumble he took with her in 2006, just weeks after his third wife gave birth to Trump’s fifth child. Trump denies he had the encounter with Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels, but he paid her anyway. Go … figure, eh?

The grand jury indicted Trump on a charge that he paid the sum illegally in 2016 while he was running for POTUS the first time.

Ohhh, boy. Ain’t this just a kick in patootie?

Now we must face the obvious question of whether this is just the first of a series of indictments. We have the Georgia district attorney investigating whether Trump sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election there; we have that evidence recorded from a phone tirade he launched against the Georgia secretary of state.

Plus … we have the Justice Department examining whether Trump broke the law when he took classified documents from the White House as he was exiting the building and, of course, whether he incited the 1/6 insurrection that sought to overthrow the U.S. government. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has said that “no one is above the law. No … one!” We’re going to find out if he means it.

I have thought the Georgia case was the easiest one to prosecute. Maybe that will pan out. Then again, there also appears to be mountains of evidence against the ex-POTUS on the insurrection and the classified documents matters as well.

But all that aside, what we have unfolding today is an unprecedented event in U.S. history with Trump standing alone as the only ex-POTUS to be charged with a felony.

This individual’s life is about to change forever.

Stand tall, Donald.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

This guy wants to control our nukes?

Take a good look at this item posted today on social media. It is a statement attributed to the dipsh** who served as POTUS for a single term that ended on Jan. 20, 2021.

He is about to be indicted — apparently — by the Manhattan, N.Y., grand jury, which has examined evidence relating to a 130 grand hush money payment that the former POTUS made to a porn star with whom he took a tumble.

What is so remarkable about the rant is its tone. It is full of vile venom and absolute lies. It is defamatory on its face, casting the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, as some sort of demonic character. He calls Bragg a “Soros backed animal.”

This individual wants to return to the White House. He wants to resume control of the world’s most powerful military operation. He wants to be restored as our head of state.

Think about that for just a moment — that’s all the time you will need — about whether you want this individual to return to the world’s most powerful public office.

This idiot cannot control himself. He has no business being anywhere near the White House.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

If only he had respect …

If the former president of the United States who well might be indicted for a felony allegation of an illegal payment to a porn star had an ounce of respect and dignity …

He would never have told of the threat of political protests in case he is indicted. He also would have instructed his gullible followers to protest peacefully if they’re going to march in the streets.

Neither of those things happened. Manhattan, N.Y., District Attorney Alvin Bragg appears set to indict the one-time POTUS. The process well might produce some unseemly images of an ex-POTUS being fingerprinted and processed in a local jail.

If Bragg goes through with what the world believes will occur, we can likely look forward to Justice Department prosecutors and the Fulton County, Ga., DA to follow suit.

But if the ex-POTUS can’t bring himself to do the right thing by calling off the mobs that could cause a lot of harm to the nation — once again! — then perhaps the cops in cities across the land will be prepared to meet them head on.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

McCarthy: duplicity beyond belief

If there is a more duplicitous, hypocritical, cowardly and craven politician than Kevin McCarthy, then he or she will have to show themselves to me.

The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives continues to carry the cudgel for POTUS 45, the man McCarthy said immediately after the 1/6 insurrection should be held accountable for the assault he incited on our government.

He said at the time that the ex-POTUS should be charged with crimes against the government. He condemned the former president’s inaction in the harshest terms imaginable.

What’s he saying now? That his hero did nothing wrong. That the Manhattan DA who’s about to indict the ex-POTUS should be investigated. McCarthy is standing with the MAGA cabal, which stands with the former POTUS and his threat to pardon all the defendants charged with crimes against the government … if he’s elected to office. (I can’t believe I just typed those final few words.)

It won’t happen, but that doesn’t diminish Kevin McCarthy’s craven display of cowardice.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com