What fraud? Trump’s hopes of a return to White House very much alive
"Trump will use the indictment of HIS company and the CFO for a 15-year scam to rally his MAGA gang. Trump has no shame - for Trump, no shame no sin."
This Australian opinion, though skating the surface, lays out the situation pretty well. However it is a superficial look as it omits an important ingredient.You know that one important reason why Trump's popularity has a solid bottom base. I'll revisit that in a 2nd reply.
By Matthew Knott Updated July 2, 2021 — 11.57am first published at 11.39am
Washington: It’s never a good day when the company that bears your name and one of its most senior executives are indicted on charges of conspiracy, tax fraud and falsifying business records.
Being convicted of that charge alone could lead to more than 15 years in prison for the 73-year-old who has been one of Donald Trump’s most trusted advisers for decades.
IMAGE Wall push continues: former US president Donald Trump on a visit to an unfinished section of his border wall in Pharr, Texas, this week. Credit: AP
But Trump himself does not appear to be in imminent legal jeopardy.
While Weisselberg was being led into a Manhattan courtroom in handcuffs, Trump was safely ensconced in his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Neither Trump nor any of his family members have been charged with wrongdoing and it’s unclear whether they ever will be.
What’s obvious is that three years after launching his much-hyped investigation into Trump’s business operations, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance does not yet have the goods to bring a case against the former US president.
The prosecutors’ hope has been that by going after Weisselberg, they could persuade him to “flip” on Trump and provide them with the evidence required to charge him.
IMAGE Trump Organisation CFO Allen Weisselberg, seated, appears in court in Manhattan. Credit: AP
So far that hasn’t happened. Weisselberg has pleaded not guilty and remains loyal to Trump. It’s possible he could change his mind, but in cases like this a co-operating witness will usually strike a deal with prosecutors before charges are filed against them. Advertisement
If found guilty, Weisselberg would not be the first person to take the fall for shady behaviour in Trump’s business and political operations.
IMAGE Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen, was sentenced to three years in jail for tax evasion and campaign finance violations in 2018. Credit: AP
The Muller investigation saw Trump’s former campaign chief Paul Manafort .. https://www.smh.com.au/link/follow-20170101-p56pzn , foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos .. https://www.smh.com.au/link/follow-20170101-p56prr .. and longtime friend Roger Stone sentenced to jail. But Trump emerged essentially unscathed from a probe he labelled a “witch hunt”. (Trump pardoned all three shortly before leaving office.)
If Trump’s company is found guilty of tax fraud, it will have to pay a fine of up to $US250,000. That would certainly be an embarrassing outcome for Trump.
But it wouldn’t fundamentally change how anyone perceives him. Democrats already believe he’s a conman and a crook. Meanwhile, most Republicans would agree with him that the charges were politically-motivated. And they’ll ask: isn’t it common practice for business owners to cut corners and do some things “off the books”?
VIDEO - Trump teases political comeback 2:00 Former US president Donald Trump is in campaign mode and will hit key battleground states ahead of next year’s midterms and a possible second run at the White House.
Even Trump’s most loyal supporters don’t regard him as morally-pure; they see him as someone who says what he believes and gets the job done.
Ever since Trump declared he was running for office, his opponents have been waiting for the emergence of a deus ex machina - a game-changing scandal capable of ending his political career once and for all.
The Access Hollywood tape scandal .. https://www.smh.com.au/link/follow-20170101-grxuox .. didn’t do it. Neither did the Mueller investigation. Neither did his two impeachment trials: Trump was acquitted .. https://www.smh.com.au/link/follow-20170101-p572an .. by the Senate both times. Despite losing last year’s election and fomenting the January 6 Capitol riot, Trump remains the Republican Party’s figurehead and the frontrunner for its 2024 nomination.
So far, the New York investigation and resulting criminal proceedings haven’t delivered a mortal blow to Trump’s career.
We don’t know where the legal story ultimately ends and there will be twists along the way. But for now Trump remains a free man with a realistic shot at returning to the White House in just a few years.
NEVER FORGET, in many American eyes (as blinded by belief that they are) Trump represents (in their fact TRUMP IS) a gift from God. Irrespective of how nuts that sounds it seems to be an important ingredient in any consideration of Trump's possible political longevity.
Trump will use the indictment of HIS company and the CFO for a 15-year scam to rally his MAGA gang. Trump has no shame - for Trump, no shame no sin.
No shame no sin. God's gift.
EVANGELICALS HAVE BEEN RESHAPED INTO THE IMAGE OF TRUMP HIMSELF By Michael Gerson Oct. 28, 2019 at 5:25 p.m. EDT [...] If Trump survives the impeachment process, and somehow wins a second term, many explanations will be offered. It may be that the Democratic Party went too far left, or picked a nominee with a glass jaw, or couldn’t swim against the political tide of a good economy. But there will be one reason behind all of these reasons: because evangelicals lost their taste for character and gave their blessing to corruption. And this grand act of hypocrisy would mark them for a generation. P - The reform of evangelicalism is probably the work of men and women of a rising generation, who have significantly different views and values from their elders. About two-thirds of young white evangelicals believe that immigrants strengthen the country. Their approval of Trump is significantly lower. Time will work in favor of sanity. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=151976140 .. and in reply .. To link - Faith and freedoms: why evangelicals profess unwavering love for Trump [...] Evangelicals feel Trump has kept his covenant with them by nominating conservative judges to federal courts and to the supreme court; by tacitly supporting abortion bans; by supporting Christian universities and organizations that profess a moral objection to same-sex marriage or contraception; by supporting religious dispensations from anti-discrimination laws; by moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and other measures. P - Meanwhile, Trump has addressed a central concern for white evangelicals that they are losing influence as a group and that the sun is setting on the United States they dream of – a nation that is white and Christian in its majority and in its essence. P - “They’ll look away from the moral indiscretion in order to get their political agenda in place... https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=151982070
The apocalyptic myth that helps explain evangelical support for Trump ""Is this fascism? No. Could it become fascism? Yes "Is Donald Trump a Fascist? Part 2 of Interview with Robert Paxton, Father of Fascism Studies [...] “God’s used imperfect people all through history. King David wasn’t perfect. Saul wasn’t perfect. Solomon wasn’t perfect,” outgoing Energy Secretary Rick Perry said in an interview on “Fox & Friends” before going on to claim that he had given the president “a little one-pager on those Old Testament kings about a month ago. And I shared with him, I said, ‘Mr. President, I know there are people who say, you know, you are the chosen one,’ and I said, ‘You were.’ ” P - Perry’s statement — especially that “chosen one” bit — would be more surprising in a different administration. At this point, though, it could almost disappear into the background chatter of the administration and its allies. Presidential adviser Paula White, for example, uses the description of a demonic struggle to paint contemporary politics as a holy war .. https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2019/11/paula-white-donald-trumps-new-white-house-adviser-ratchets-up-fake-news-rhetoric-denouncing-demonic-networks.html . In a sermon about Trump in June, she proclaimed, “I declare President Trump will overcome every strategy from hell and every strategy of the enemy, every strategy, and he will fulfill his calling and his destiny.” [...] A theology for times of crisis, real or imagined, the Last World Emperor narrative actually requires a flawed lay hero in the model of the biblical King David — proud, combative and sexually impure but beloved by God not just despite his transgressions but because of them. The prophesied leader must also be militant, prepared to cleanse the West of the impure (which includes not only dissidents and unbelievers but also, as in many Christian religious myths, Jews), reunite “Western Civilization” and violently destroy the power of both the Antichrist and Islam. In the process, he will bring about the second coming. It is, in other words, an ideology built on anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim and anti-heretic persecution. [...] Though such apocalypticism is sometimes treated as a fringe belief .. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/explanation/worldview.html — a series of “wild claims” — it forms a heart of certain brands of evangelical Christianity. “Apocalypse” tends to be synonymous with catastrophe, but the heart of Christian apocalypticism is hope: a desire for the new heaven and the new Earth, the coming of the Kingdom of God. And if the kingdom is the goal and a desirable outcome, is it any surprise that there are those who want to usher it in faster? The problem is that any attempt to usher it in requires radical change — and often radical violence to bring it about. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=157009731
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