Trump warns of 'death and destruction' if he's indicted in NY case



Former President Donald Trump Friday warned of “death and destruction” if he is indicted for paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Raising the rhetorical heat, Trump suggested that his supporters will respond with fury if he is criminally charged in the case as early as next week when a grand jury reconvenes to deliberate.

“Potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country,” Trump wrote on his social media site.

Trump falsely claimed last weekend that he would be arrested in the case on Tuesday and urged his supporters to “protest, take our nation back.”

[ . . . .]

The details of any indictment that may be handed up as soon as this week are not yet known, and Mr. Bragg could charge any number of crimes. But there is a possibility that the case will rely on a legal theory that has never been evaluated by a judge.

[ . . . . ]

The case could hinge on the way Mr. Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, handled reimbursing Mr. Cohen for the payment of $130,000 to Ms. Daniels. Internal Trump Organization records falsely classified the reimbursements as legal expenses, which helped conceal the purpose of the payments, according to Mr. Cohen, who said Mr. Trump knew about the misleading records. (Mr. Trump’s lawyers deny that.)

In New York, falsifying business records can be a crime, and Mr. Bragg’s office is likely to build the case around that charge, according to people with knowledge of the matter and outside legal experts. The false business records charge is the bread and butter of the district attorney’s office white-collar practice — since Mr. Bragg took office in 2022, prosecutors have filed 117 felony counts of the charge, against 29 individuals and companies, according to data kept by the office.

But for falsifying business records to be a felony, not a misdemeanor, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors must show that Mr. Trump’s “intent to defraud” included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime. That crime could be a violation of election law, under the theory that the payout served as a donation to Mr. Trump’s campaign, because it silenced Ms. Daniels and shut down a potential sex scandal in the final stretch of the campaign.

Although the district attorney’s office need not obtain a conviction on the election law violation, or even include it in the indictment, that second crime might be the aspect of the legal theory that is most vulnerable to attack.

Mayor Adams dismissed the notion that there should be a separation between church and state in U.S. society on Tuesday, drawing ire from fellow Democrats who contended that line of argument runs counter to long-held American values.

Adams, who’s Christian, has over the course of his political career spoken extensively about how important faith is in civic life and said as recently as last February that “God” told him to become mayor.

But his comments Tuesday morning, delivered at an interfaith breakfast at the New York Public Library’s central branch in Manhattan, took it a step further.

The tone was set by Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Adams’ chief adviser in City Hall, who introduced him at the event by declaring that the mayor’s administration “does not believe” it must “separate church from state.” “Ingrid was so right,” Adams said once he took the stage. “Don’t tell me about no separation of church and state. State is the body, church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies. I can’t separate my beliefs because I’m an elected official.”

Mark 5 hrs ago
Houston

81 years ago next month, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. We did not waste time asking why the Japanese attacked us or who was to blame for not having better defenses.

24 hours after the attack, FDR was standing before Congress asking for a declaration of war. Within 4 hours, he got it.

The GOP intends harm to our country, and they have the means to do it. The relevant question is not how did we get to this point. The relevant question is, what are we going to do to stop them before they can do even more damage?

When we ask that question, we need to be looking at responses within a Pearl Harbor time frame, and not a Merrick Garland timeframe. Having to wait more than two years to stop an enemy is useless.

I am a 61-year-old, cisgender gay man, and I have to say I have zero patience with gay men who express sentiments such as those expressed by LW#3!

Look, I don't fully "understand" (whatever that even means in this context) the experience of a transgender person, because I am not transgender myself. I have never had any inner conflict concerning my own gender identity as a man. That said, the simple reality is that I don't _need_ to understand it in order treat a transgender person, be they friend, acquaintance or foe, with the dignity and respect of addressing and identifying them as they have chosen to be addressed and identified! And I don't have to live their lives -- only they do.

And to any of the men in LW#3's group who feel similarly to LW#3, I would question whether you all are, or ever were, really friends. Sounds to me as if you are all more of a (rather shallow) affinity group.

And to any gay man who thinks the transgender members of the LGBTQ+ community have nothing whatever to do with gay people, I would respectfully submit that you really need to reacquaint yourself with the history of the LGBTQ+ struggle for civil rights and equality before the law!

Inside the War Between Trump and His Generals

How Mark Milley and others in the Pentagon handled the national-security threat posed by their own Commander-in-Chief.

By Susan B. Glasser and Peter Baker

In the summer of 2017, after just half a year in the White House, Donald Trump flew to Paris for Bastille Day celebrations thrown by Emmanuel Macron, the new French President. Macron staged a spectacular martial display to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the American entrance into the First World War. Vintage tanks rolled down the Champs-Élysées as fighter jets roared overhead. The event seemed to be calculated to appeal to Trump—his sense of showmanship and grandiosity—and he was visibly delighted. The French general in charge of the parade turned to one of his American counterparts and said, “You are going to be doing this next year.”

Sure enough, Trump returned to Washington determined to have his generals throw him the biggest, grandest military parade ever for the Fourth of July. The generals, to his bewilderment, reacted with disgust. “I’d rather swallow acid,” his Defense Secretary, James Mattis, said. Struggling to dissuade Trump, officials pointed out that the parade would cost millions of dollars and tear up the streets of the capital.

But the gulf between Trump and the generals was not really about money or practicalities, just as their endless policy battles were not only about clashing views on whether to withdraw from Afghanistan or how to combat the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and Iran. The divide was also a matter of values, of how they viewed the United States itself. That was never clearer than when Trump told his new chief of staff, John Kelly—like Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general—about his vision for Independence Day. “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade,” Trump said. “This doesn’t look good for me.” He explained with distaste that at the Bastille Day parade there had been several formations of injured veterans, including wheelchair-bound soldiers who had lost limbs in battle.

Kelly could not believe what he was hearing. “Those are the heroes,” he told Trump. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are—and they are buried over in Arlington.” Kelly did not mention that his own son Robert, a lieutenant killed in action in Afghanistan, was among the dead interred there.

“I don’t want them,” Trump repeated. “It doesn’t look good for me.”

[ . . . .]