Here are some (hilarious) photos of Donald Trump in New York yesterday, Day 1 of his New York state trial for fraud. New York AG Letitia James is prosecuting Trump for his years of fraudulent business practices, which include serial fabrications about his wealth and business success. There are tons of punishments facing Trump if convicted, including a $250 million fine. Hilariously, this trial will be decided by a judge and not a jury, because Trump’s dumbf–k lawyers were too stupid to simply check a box saying they wanted a jury trial. Trump spoke to the media coming and going from the courtroom, and he tried to sh-t talk AG James, Judge Engoron and everybody else. He also tried to physically intimidate AG James, hovering over her as she was seated at a table. She apparently laughed it off. You can read more about what happened at the Times.
Meanwhile, remember John Kelly? He was Trump’s chief of staff for a while. I remember his face when Trump called those Charlottesville Nazis “very fine people.” Well, Kelly spoke to Jake Tapper at CNN and this was a pretty great takedown:
“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly said, when asked if he wanted to weigh in on his former boss in light of recent comments made by other former Trump officials. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.
“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women. A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law. There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”
While this is a good takedown and I appreciate Kelly spilling this tea, I have to ask again: what did John Kelly or any of these people think they were going to accomplish by working for him? That bit about Trump’s mockery of Gold Star families happened in 2016 (and beyond) – Kelly knew that and he signed up to be Trump’s Chief of Staff anyway. Anyway, LOCK HIM UP.
"I think it's very unfair I don't have a jury" — Trump, who doesn't have a jury because his lawyers elected not to have one pic.twitter.com/N2K5FHMOQk
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 2, 2023
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
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- New York, NY – Former U.S. President Donald Trump enters Civil Court and against him, his sons for grossly inflating asset valuations on financial statements, begins his civil fraud trial brought by New York State Attorney General in New York City. Pictured: Donald Trump BACKGRID USA 2 OCTOBER 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Former U.S. President Donald Trump enters Civil Court and against him, his sons for grossly inflating asset valuations on financial statements, begins his civil fraud trial brought by New York State Attorney General in New York City. Pictured: Donald Trump BACKGRID USA 2 OCTOBER 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Former U.S. President Donald Trump enters Civil Court and against him, his sons for grossly inflating asset valuations on financial statements, begins his civil fraud trial brought by New York State Attorney General in New York City. Pictured: Donald Trump BACKGRID USA 2 OCTOBER 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Former U.S. President Donald Trump enters Civil Court and against him, his sons for grossly inflating asset valuations on financial statements, begins his civil fraud trial brought by New York State Attorney General in New York City. Pictured: Donald Trump BACKGRID USA 2 OCTOBER 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- New York, NY – Former U.S. President Donald Trump enters Civil Court and against him, his sons for grossly inflating asset valuations on financial statements, begins his civil fraud trial brought by New York State Attorney General in New York City. Pictured: Donald Trump BACKGRID USA 2 OCTOBER 2023 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
I will be forever grateful when this man no longer occupies this planet.
Will still leave a nasty orange stain even when gone.
Have to disagree here. He would only become a martyr. He needs to live a long life, go to jail for a long time and be forgotten that way.
Michael Fanone, a cop who nearly died on Jan 6 said something similar. He wants Trump to have a bad stroke and then live a long life.
Judging from his recent Iowa rant, dementia may be settling in and accelerating.
If he had hired reputable lawyers and paid them then they would have known to check the box. Or they did this on purpose so he could cry foul about it . I’m thinking it’s the latter he just wants to use it and cry about it.
Yeah, wasn’t he complaining about being tried in NY due to the jury pool being too Democrat? I could absolutely see him/ his lawyers not checking that box on purpose and then whinging about a lack of a jury afterwards. That tracks.
Yep! As an ex-New Yorker, who well remembers the Trump ads in the papers drumming up hate against the so-called Central Park Five, and the Trump family history of refusing to rent their properties to POC despite building them with government backed loans, I know a LOT of people who would have been more than fine with being on that particular jury.
When karma comes for Trump, there will be quite a crowd of people primed to watch.
This is how Trump will appeal for ineffective counsel. And it will probably work because his counsel is ineffective.
I have a good friend who is a well known criminal defense attorney in NYC. He says no attorney who values their reputation will go near Tr*mp.
He doesn’t WANT a jury, he just wants an audience to play to. Can you imagine having to watch that clown perform every day
They could’ve raised objections to the judge thing the first day of the trial, yesterday, and didn’t. His lawyers are making choices that he doesn’t like and they’re just letting him think there’s Legal Reasons.
This is strategy. His lawyers don’t want a jury – and neither does Trump – for reasons well-outlined by Blithe. But he DOES want to be able to convince his followers – devoid of critical thinking skills – that he’s being treated unfairly. This approach meets both needs.
Susan Collins, Right. No way that was an oversight. They discussed it thoroughly.
Susan Collins, Right. No way checking the box for a jury trial was an oversight. They discussed it thoroughly. He’s a born liar and I hope he doesn’t get away with the incompetent representation BS. (Though they likely are incompetent, but that’s his fault.)
“While this is a good takedown and I appreciate Kelly spilling this tea, I have to ask again: what did John Kelly or any of these people think they were going to accomplish by working for him? ”
Amen. I am glad you asked the question. Because people him and Cassidy Hutchinson who are talking now because they benefit from it are just gross to me. And the way that Hutchinson is hailed for “telling her story” is some bullsh!t. She watched as crime after crime was committed during that administration and went along with it. I’m sick of them and especially sick of this fake ass, orange unintelligent baffoon.
Exactly. He has always been a racist, criminal buffoon, who said disgusting things long before he was elected, so no one who chose to go work in that administration ever, EVER gets points from me for whining about him later.
The unchecked box thing is so hilarious and foolish, I didn’t even believe it at first. It’s almost Four Seasons Landscaping levels.
Right? so much of this stuff that he is talking about is based on things Trump said well before he was ever elected – the gold star comments, the comments about McCain being captured, etc. And those are comments that should have been over the line for a marine corps general.
By the time Kelly came on board as CoS, which was about 6 months into Trump’s term, it was known by then that Trump wasn’t going to be controlled by his staff, that he was going to say whatever he wanted, do whatever he wanted. Maybe Kelly thought he could handle him better than Priebus, I don’t know. But IIRC he had already fired Comey by that point. It wasn’t like Trump was hiding who he was.
I do think Kelly always rolled his eyes at trump behind his back, but if Kelly thought these things about Trump – why work for him?
(I will say that I am laughing at how Kelly is like “what else is there to say” and then goes on a long winded rant.)
But even six months into his term, no one believed Trump had been showing who he was all along. There was this miasma of denial and a kind of paralysis among politicians and political operatives that this is just who Trump is. People kept waiting for him to “get serious” and thought he could be controlled. We all have the (dubious) benefit of hindsight now, but I remember people just not being able to comprehend that the person elected as POTUS would act so irresponsibly and lie off his ass ALL THE TIME. The US population was like the girlfriend in denial that her boyfriend is abusive. Now words like “narcissist” and “gaslighting” are used commonly, but at the time, we were just coming out of the Obama years, which now seem like some kind of progressive golden age: a Black president, universal healthcare, gay marriage legalized, trans individuals allowed to serve openly in the military.
Trump never hid who he was—people just didn’t believe what was right before their eyes. My point being, a lot of people still thought he could be controlled.
But my point is, by that point we all knew he couldn’t. He ws burning through staff. He fired Comey which was a HUGE red flag, I give Reince Priebus a small pass for the reasons you mentioned. But by July 2017, it was pretty clear that Trump was not going to be controlled. And as long as he put their judges on the bench, congressional Rs didn’t care.
And if Kelly thought he could control Trump, he was only fooling himself. And again, trump had already said all those anti-gold star, anti-war hero, anti-POW comments long before Kelly took the job. If those comments were so disgusting to Kelly, what the hell was he doing working for him?
Got it, yeah. I think the denial was still there though—on its last legs, to be sure—because I remember there were all these news stories hailing Kelly as the hardass who would finally bring discipline to the WH. I think Kelly thought he could wrangle the beast, and discovered he absolutely couldn’t—he was undone by his own blindness and ego.
I think it’s more of the “Well, I never thought the face-eating leopard was going to bite MY face!” attitude. Kelly, like many other republicans, thought he could corral and weaponize Trump and his followers. They were fine with the crimes and the appeals to people’s worst instincts and the violence so long as it got them the things that they wanted. Eventually, all of them get burned. I wish for a day when you won’t be able to find anyone who will admit to having voted for him.
All I ‘see’ when I hear john kelly’s name is the lies he told about a black woman, Rep Frederica Wilson and how he doubled down when it was shown that he lied, refused to apologize. He and his ilk can miss me with their redemption tours. (I appreciate CH telling the truth when it mattered but I cannot figure out how you can love/adore someone, however she describes her feelings for him – that you know is a hateful person). I mean seriously, suggesting execution for Milley is what it took for him to tell the truth about this miscreant?
@WannaBeFarmer ALL OF THIS. I’m not saying John Kelly is a traitor to the US but he is just as evil and complicit as all of the Republicans who support trump.
None of the people who worked for trump get a pass. None.
John Kelly could, and should, have spoken out when he was in office and held Trump accountable in real time. His behavior was disgraceful.
I actually think they deliberately choose no jury so that 1. no witness/jurists to talk about the evidence after the trial and b. he can rile his supporters up about being treated “so unfairly, some people say no one has ever been treated my unfairly than me.”
Yeah, I came here to say precisely this. It’s fun to call him a big dumb idiot (because he is) with shi**y lawyers (because they are) but this is some first year law student level stuff. It has to be a gambit.
Granted, it’s a bit of a risky one but for all the reasons you mentioned plus setting up potential appeals etc. it may be one they’re risking.
I think he may have wanted a jury to delay the actual trial. Can you imagine the voir dire process? Trump’s lawyers would challenge everyone, dig up dirt on everyone, intimidate jury members & their families, all the dirty tricks that he’s pulled before. Now he only gets to insult the judge & the prosecutor.
My guess is that his lawyers didn’t ask for a jury trial because NYers hate Trump. The trial would have been over before it started. At least with a judge they could attempt to make some artful bullshit legal arguments, maybe get some of the charges dismissed on a hail mary technicality. This is the same reason why Trump wants his insurrection trial to be held in West Virginia—for the favorable jury pool. It’s not even possible for him to have a trial in West Virginia, but Trump knows that DC f-ckin hates him.
Fifty-50, I also believe that his attorneys have something in writing (email or text message) where Trump agreed to no jury. If trump wants to appeal because of ineffective counsel, they will be able to use that rather than be labeled ineffective. It could get interesting. That’s assuming Trump can find another attorney to appeal.
So if even if they checked off the box that requests a jury trial, he wouldn’t have ever fully gotten one. Deciding how much he owes or whether he can hold a business in ny can’t really decided by a jury. It’s possible the case could have been bifurcated and part of it be decided by a jury but that can’t even be a possibility now due to the unchecked request for a jury. But either way, parts of this case could only be decided by a judge.
That kelly rant is pretty wild and coming way too late. Also trump keeps on trying to call AG James a racist, which just makes me want to throw a dictionary at his face.
Kelly had said it before but it was “a White House source.” After Trump wanted Milley executed, Kelly appeared and claimed it.
Trump pled the fifth 450 times before Letitia James, can you imagine a NY jury hearing that? Eric pled the fifth 500 times. “I did nothing wrong” ha!
He chose not to have a jury trial because an NYC jury pool would have voted to convict day 1.
He would have complained about a jury trial as well because that’s just what he does.
Wonder who advised him to switch the color of his tie to blue? 🤔
Same. Two things come to mind:
1. “You can trust a man in blue” is a saying and he desperately is trying to convince someone (the public? the judge?) he is innocent and trustworthy. (this is my most likely rationale)
2. He’s trying to get the his base to associate blue with this trial and his rants of victimhood. He’s trying to make blue (aka the color of the Democratic Party) a villain.
That physical intimidation he tried with HRC and she failed miserably to respond. One cannot help but wonder what might have happened if she had turned around and said something cleverly insulting to him about stage stalking her.
I’m not going to impugn your comment . I’m going to ask you to follow through with what you suggested she do and ask you to come to a logical solution of how that would have played out. The shrieking woman that can’t handle a man imposing on her space. She’s a professional, she knew how to react. Ignore him. But there’s also the thought that she, like most women, know to refrain from antagonizing a man that has already admitted to hatred of and violence toward women that challenge him. She did the right thing. It was not HER responsibility to challenge him. The moderators and security were responsible for stopping him and they DIDN’T. She did what we all women do when confronted by an angry, violent man. Don’t poke the bear, get out with your body intact. Even a woman as experienced as she has not shaken the ingrained intuition to get away from a psychopath with your life. Nobody stepped in to stop him. Her life-saving intuition kicked in. Don’t dog her for it. We all think “I should have said” but the outcome is not predictable. She handled it appropriately.
I feel like he’s lost weight?! Maybe/hopefully he’s extremely stressed and well…
What’s really sad is that all his dumb f#$K followers aren’t going to pay attention to anyone or anything but him and they truly believe that he’s getting screwed out of a jury trial…. Despite the fact that multiple news outlets/journalists/newspapers have been on repeat stating that the defense didn’t ask for a jury trial. They won’t care because he keeps stating that it isn’t fair that he didn’t get a jury trial. If he says it, they believe it, it’s a cult, like Scientology. It’s damn scary, they believe everything he says.
That’s what I think. His cult members have no idea about how all of this works ( I don’t either.). So they will absolutely believe his b.s.
“While this is a good takedown and I appreciate Kelly spilling this tea, I have to ask again: what did John Kelly or any of these people think they were going to accomplish by working for him? That bit about Trump’s mockery of Gold Star families happened in 2016 (and beyond) – Kelly knew that and he signed up to be Trump’s Chief of Staff anyway. ”
While it’s obvious a lot of the individuals who joined his administration were grifters with their own agendas, I do believe at least some joined because they saw what a mess he was and knew someone had to steer the ship just to keep things running (somewhat) smoothly.
You know, like someone who sees a burning car rolling downhill towards a town so they jump in to take the wheel and try to avert a disaster?
I’m not saying that was Kelly but I do believe certain life-long government and military folks knowingly participated in the poop show in an effort to keep everything from crashing down. These were also the folks who were dismissed/fired or quit early in their tenures with very public condemnations.
John Kelly was AWFUL before he worked for Trump…which is why he had NO trouble working for the POS FASCIST TROGLODYTE ☹️. Birds of a DEPLORABLE feather 🤬
I second or third or 18th that John Kelly is awful. And I have to say as a lawyer I am loving seeing Trump experience the legal system.
Kelly needs to say that shit on Fox News and NewsMax not freakin CNN
I don’t know which soap this actress plays a lawyer on, but her Trump Tweet is pretty funny https://x.com/nancyleegrahn/status/1709043226370601154?s=10&t=9eEQ5UxrZ07VHg7cUmszTg
“What can I say that hasn’t already been said? But I have to justify my appearance/fees, so here goes…”