Stephen

Indicted over his mishandling of classified documents. Must admit the schadenfreude is strong with this one.

Psy-Fi

At this point they're throwing any charge they can dig up at him and hoping one will stick and knock him out of the 2024 Presidential race.

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She's a Brick House

Stephen

I mean he kept those documents because he knows what they’re worth to dodgy foreign powers. He is dumb, greedy and arrogant enough to have disseminated information to the wrong hands.

The Batlord

I hope they come at him with everything they can and people who point out that what they're doing is political weak sauce are just smug morons who are announcing that they have read a headline. Is it dumb that they're only going after state **** two years after Jan 6? Yeah. Do I have hope they'll accomplish anything? Meh. Am I willing to watch this in case he actually gets put in jail? Sure. Am I stupid enough to tell everyone how little I care about mishandling classified documents as if it makes me a cool guy? Nah.

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The Batlord

Congrats on recognizing the obvious.

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Psy-Fi

Imagine what a $hit show it'll be if he beats whatever charges they hit him with and he goes on to get the Republican nomination and then beats Biden in the 2024 Presidential election.

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She's a Brick House

The Batlord

You could always spread your ass cheeks for him now so he won't be mean to you when he's president.

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Lisnaholic

Although we can agree about various musical enthusiasms, Psy-Fi, I fear that we are hopelessly on opposite sides of the divide in US politics.

elph and Batlord may agree with the above, but to me, that seems to be a completely inaccurate description of Trump's indictment. I prefer this explanation:-

Someone who appears to have committed a crime is accused of the crime by the law enforcement authorities.

No malign, undefined "they", so beloved of conspiracy theorists; no Trump exceptionalism. Just the application of the rules about classified documents and obstructing justice. As many commentators have mentioned, "If you or I had done what Trump did, we would have been in jail long ago." Which admittedly means that Trump has been treated exceptionally: not the victim of a political witch-hunt, though, but with extra-patient, kid-glove handling by the authorities.

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

SGR

So you really think that after Russiagate, after the findings of the Durham report, after it's been revealed that the US intelligence operatives lied about Hunter Biden's laptop being "Russian disinformation" (resulting in censorship of the subject matter in social media), in the leadup to an election, and after two impeachments that what we're seeing here is just: "No one is above the law"?

Sorry Lisna, I think we're watching different movies. The amount of corrupt crooks and criminals in the United States government (we could just use the warmongers who lied us into Iraq and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians as a starting point), and Trump is being pursued for mishandling classified documents? I'm totally fine with someone believing this case is weak or trivial, but being in full support of it regardless and hoping the heaviest hammer comes down because they hate Trump, but to pretend that it isn't politically motivated and is completely and totally unbiased is pretty short-sighted.

Perhaps Trump can use the Hillary Clinton/James Comey "lack of criminal intent in mishandling classified information" defense?

Lisnaholic

Yes, I think we must be, SGR, and I think some of the blame lies with the media coverage and the way they focus on the story of the moment. It's easy for a casual viewer to get things out of perspective because the media doesn't give much comparative background information. If the top story is Hunter Biden's laptop on Monday, then Trump's call asking for Georgia votes on Tuesday, we might regard them as being of equal importance, but they're not.

I haven't found a decent analysis of DOJ investigations and convictions, but I have pulled these basic stats together:-
Mueller Report into Russian election interference:

I counted 7 Republicans, Michael Cohen and a bunch of Russians convicted.

The Durham Report on how the Russia investigation was conducted :

In fact, Durham convicted one mid-level FBI guy of altering an email, but had two other prosecutions fail in the courts.

Yep, loads of governmental wrong-doing goes on and a lot of it goes unpunished, which is an arguement for what, exactly? Never charge Trump with anything? He stole, then lied about, then showed to other people box after box of classified documents. People like you and me don't know exactly what was involved, but it sounds very damaging to US national security, its global reputation and the confidence of the US's international allies. Breaking various laws and causing all that damage is sufficient motive to indict Trump imo.

As for Hunter Biden, I haven't followed that case really, mainly because he's not a US president, or even in public office afaik: not like those pigs-at-the-trough Ivanka and Jared who did so much to make unchecked nepotism fashionable.

Finally, in answer to this question, No, I don't think he can. With Clinton and Comey no one could prove criminal intent. With Trump, I think it's already clear that there was criminal intent, cover-up, obstruction, etc. The details of the two cases are very different afaik.

And here's a final finally:

Two problems with this scenario: Jack Smith is working independently of Merrick Garland and MG works independently of Biden. Yeah, it's perhaps naive to accept that too literally, but it indicates a degree of separation that the sinister Trump/Barr hand-in-glove clownshow made a mockery of.
Problem number two: Democratic strategists actually would like Trump to win the GOP primary, because they're confident that he'll lose the general election, just like he did last time.

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953