Members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have warned America for three years to take former President Donald Trump at his word.
Now, as Trump is poised to win the Republican presidential nomination, his criminal trials face delays that could stall them past Election Day, and his rhetoric grows increasingly authoritarian, some of those lawmakers find themselves following their own advice.
In mid-March, Trump said on social media that the committee members should be jailed. In December he vowed to be a dictator on “day one.” In August, he said he would “have no choice” but to lock up his political opponents.
“If he intends to eliminate our constitutional system and start arresting his political enemies, I guess I would be on that list,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose). “One thing I did learn on the committee is to pay attention and listen to what Trump says, because he means it.”
Lofgren added that she doesn’t yet have a plan in place to thwart potential retribution by Trump. But Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who has long been a burr in Trump’s side, said he’s having “real-time conversations” with his staff about how to make sure he stays safe if Trump follows through on his threats.
“We’re taking this seriously, because we have to,” Schiff said. “We’ve seen this movie before … and how perilous it is to ignore what someone is saying when they say they want to be a dictator.”
Strangely none of that is about crimes being done by politicians.
You know, the thing this entire thread is about: crimes.
If you don't think US politicians who execute the will of the oligarchy aren't criminally corrupt then you're childishly naive.
You should really stop using words when you don't know what they mean.
What crimes are being broken?
The system being bad and broken doesn't automatically make everyone criminals who should be in jail. Trump has broken laws and committed crimes. What crimes have his opponents committed to warrant being put in jail?
Seems to me that you're the one who doesn't know what words mean. Can you point out a crime that Trump has actually been convicted of since you obviously know what words mean.
As I explained in my original comment, Trump will have no trouble finding crimes his opponents committed, the same way Trump's own crimes have been found. What part of that are you struggling to understand?
Since you clearly have trouble wrapping your head around this concept I'll try explain it to you again. US is run by corrupt people, and once somebody starts looking into them, it's not going to be hard to find dirt. If you don't understand why it's going to be easy to find dirt on deeply corrupt people, then what else is there to say to you.
I don't see why you're asking for this since we both agree Trump is corrupt as fuck. As you said:
Which would include Trump, so why are you asking me to prove something we both agree on? Where we disagree is on the Democrats being equally corrupt, so the burden of proof is on you to show how the Democrats are corrupt / which crimes they have committed.
But here you go, here's some lists of charges against Trump: https://www.politico.com/interactives/2023/trump-criminal-investigations-cases-tracker-list/
The Republicans have been looking into Joe Biden for some time now for their impeachment claims. What dirt have the found? Have the named any actual charges yet?
Do you understand what the word convict means?
Democrats have been looking into Trump for a while now, and no convictions so far. Biden is currently being investigated in case you weren't aware https://oversight.house.gov/landing/biden-family-investigation/
Yes, do you understand what moving the goalposts means? There are active trials happening for Trump right now with evidence and actual charges and everything. There has been no evidence presented or trials scheduled for Joe Biden, or any of these other Democrats Trump wants to jail.
So to be clear here: implying that Trump is innocent because he hasn't been convicted yet, but saying Democrats are "just as bad" despite there being zero evidence or charges, is incredibly disingenuous.
Or, to simplify: holding Trump and Democrats to different standards, where Trump's trials haven't finished yet so "you can't call him guilty", and Democrats haven't even been charged and somehow "they are the same," makes it obvious that you're full of shit.
I... have mentioned that repeatedly. I even mentioned it where you quoted me. So again, so full oh shit you're not bothering to read what other people are saying. They have been investigating for a year. What crimes have been found? What charges are they presenting? Why are the wanting to quietly end it?
https://newrepublic.com/post/179789/house-republicans-desperate-biden-impeachment-exit-strategy
Again, let's make fair comparisons here: I provided a link that shared specific charges being brought to trial against Donald Trump that prosecutors have evidence for.
What specific charges are being made against Joe Biden? What evidence has been found? They've been looking for over a year, and as you said:
So where's the dirt?
Yeah, that's what you're doing. Trump has not been convicted of any actual crimes, and last I checked US system says a person is innocent until proven guilty. I see this is a concept you continue to struggle with here.
Nobody is holding Trump to different standards. You're just making a bullshit narrative here because you lack basic honesty.
They've been investigating Trump since 2016, and still haven't convicted him of anything. Yet, apparently that's different somehow. The fact that you don't even see how utterly full of shit you are is absolutely hilarious.
Once they start being investigated then we'll know. It's like if you were a psycho serial killer and nobody looked into you, then you too could be running around saying where's the dirt.
Once again: they have specific charges they are accusing him of and bringing him to trial for. They can name the specific crimes he is being accused of and when they were committed.
Then you come in with your vague "Democrats probably do illegal things too." And act like those are the same thing.
Do you understand the difference between "specific" and "vague"?
Once again, what part of innocent until proven guilty are you still struggling with there little buddy?
Probably the discrepancy between what you are saying now, and when you said:
So which is it? Innocent until proven guilty or they're all criminals?
There is no discrepancy here. You're just either trolling or have really poor reading comprehension. I said that all the politicians in US, including Trump, are corrupt. Currently, Trump is being investigated, and it is very clearly a politically motivated. So, when Trump is in power he'll start investigating his opponents the same way.
However, legally, Trump hasn't actually been convicted of anything. You're the one trying to claim that Trump is somehow uniquely guilty as opposed to simply being investigated while others aren't.
Since you're having so much trouble with this idea. I'll try to provide a grade school illustration that might help you comprehend this incredibly sophisticated concept. Let's say you have ten people who did illegal activities such as taking bribes, and you start investigating one of those people, does that mean that say anything about the other nine?
what part of innocent until proven guilty are you still struggling with there little buddy?
To clarify the difference for you one again:
There are specific crimes being charged against Trump. Clear, falsifiable statements. If they are incorrect they can be proven wrong.
Meanwhile, you have vague, unfalsifiable statements of "they must have done something. Because I say so." If you are incorrect, it cannot be proven because you've made no actual claims.
Your argument is so bad that not only isn't it right, it's not even wrong. It's just nothing.
What I actually said was that Trump will go after his opposition and find things to investigate, just like democrats found things to investigate. I never made any arguments about who's guilty and who's not guilty. That's your idiotic argument, and I keep explaining to you why it's idiotic, but you just can't seem to get it through your peanut sized brain evidently.
The reality is that there is absolutely no difference between the way Trump is currently being prosecuted and the way Trump will prosecute his opponents. I'm sorry this is a difficult concept for you to understand. Going through life must be really hard when you're a few fries short of a happy meal.
I'm not resorting to personal attacks. I've addressed the "points" you've attempted to make here directly and repeatedly.
See, you're illustrating my point for me here. I'm not resorting to insulting you as a deflection to avoid addressing your point. I'm directly addressing your claims while commenting on the fact that you're struggling to understand what's being said to you. Hope that helps.
I see the problem here: you think you're the smartest person around. If you think you're being incredibly clever then there's no way anyone could see what you're doing.
You're not. You're predictable as fuck, to the point that if you keep talking long enough you will always contradict yourself. This is because you don't have a coherent or consistent argument, you just have being contrarian and the unearned belief that You Are Very Smart.
Literally described yourself there claiming that Trump has committed crimes then admitting that he hasn't been convicted of anything. It's always projection with you trolls.
As I said, predictably contradicting yourself.
So Trump hasn't been convicted yet (currently on trial)= he didn't do crimes.
All of the other politicians haven't even been charged = they just haven't been found out yet.
Yup. Totally consistent.
I love how you keep thinking there's some gotcha in me saying that there are things other politicians can be investigated for the same way Trump is being investigated. The fact that you think this is a contradiction illustrates that your brain is as smooth as a bowling ball.
Once again, I addressed your point and I stated my opinion of your intellect. I'm not using any personal attacks to deflect from what you said. And since you're still having trouble with what's being explained to you in a myriad different ways, I'll try again.
Either Trump is an aberration, and he's being investigated because he's uniquely guilty, or he's representative of the US politicians in general and the investigation spotlight happened to fall on him in particular because of political reasons. If Trump gets in power he will simply direct the legal system to investigate other people the same way he's being investigated. Evidently this concept is so hard for you to grasp the you spent three days struggling with it.
The fact that you think your previous post has any value speaks volumes of the low quality of the rest of your posts.
And we're making progress! We've acknowledged at least the possibility that Trump is more guilty than everyone else! Nothing in your post dismisses this possibility but you seem to forget it exists in the very next sentence.
So let's not get distracted here, try to focus just a little bit longer: if Trump is a "uniquely guilty aberration" that would mean....
a) the investigation into him was completely valid.
b) his investigation into other people would be invalid and just done for revenge. Or
c) all of the above?
I love how you keep doubling down on your straw man. My point is that it's completely irrelevant how valid investigation into Trump is or whether he's guilty or not. What I'm trying to explain to you, and you're aggressively failing to understand, is that you can have a similar type of valid investigation into any US politician because there's nothing special about Trump specifically.
The legal spotlight has been put onto Trump and he's being investigated, but once Trump is in power he'll move that spotlight to other people and they will be investigated. If you still can't understand that the only thing that matters here is whom the legal system starts looking into, then there's no helping you.
The legal spotlight wasn't put on Trump because people don't like him. There was evidence of a crime so the spotlight was put on the potential crime, and Trump was there standing in the spotlight.
That's the difference. Trump wants to put the spotlight on people because he doesn't like them, and hopes to find a crime (or make one up) by doing so.
Trump wants to investigate people until he finds crimes.
Trump's charges came from people investigating crimes until they found the person responsible.
If you can't tell the difference there's no helping you.
And once again, if the justice system starts looking into other politicians, they will also find sufficient evidence for potential crime because Trump is not an outlier.
Believing this requires thinking that Trump is somehow uniquely criminal.
That is literally what the democrats are doing right now. If you think that investigations into Trump were started for anything other than political reasons then you're an incredibly naive individual.
And once again we come to the topic of evidence. There is evidence of Trump committing crimes, hence the trials. There is not evidence for other politicians other than "because you say so" which is an even weaker fallacy than an Appeal to Popularity. I will not entertain your vague claims with nothing to back to them up.
The entire criminal system is based on the idea that people can be "uniquely criminal". Otherwise everyone would be in jail or there wouldn't be crimes.
The investigations into Trump stated with "we are investigating this specific crime" and the charges that came from it were related to the specific crime being investigated. They didn't start investigating Trump in general to see what crimes fell out.
Does Trump have specific crimes he wants to investigate people for?
If you don't look there's no evidence is a really hard concept for you to grasp isn't it.
Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit is it?
You don't investigate people you don't like hoping crimes will fall out. You investigate crimes and see what people it leads to.
"They're totally criminals, trust me bro." Is not legally actionable or Trump would already be in prison.
Nah, my reading comprehension is just fine. I'm just pointing out that you don't seem to understand how Trump became investigated in the first place. They don't just spin a big wheel to decide whom to look into. Somebody decides to look into a particular person, and then they find things that are actionable and investigate them. This is precisely how Trump will investigate his political opponents as well. It's so adorable that you don't even understand how Trump came under investigation in the first place.
If you think there's nothing legally actionable on any US politician, then send me a DM cause I have a nice bridge to sell you.
So close: somebody decides there is evidence of a crime, investigates the crime, and follows the evidence until it leads to a person.
Again, you saying "trust me bro, it's totally there" is not legally actionable evidence. If you think it is I have a Unicorn to sell you, it's invisible and can be there tomorrow.
Yeah, you are indeed so close, you just have to figure out why somebody decides to look for a crime to investigate and you'll get it. Once you figure out why all of a sudden old supposed crimes of the cheeto suddenly became relevant in 2023, you'll figure the rest out.
That's not what I'm saying at all, maybe work on that reading comprehension instead of straw manning.
Fallacy fallacy dude. "Strawman" is not some magic word that makes criticisms of your argument disappear. The point of recognizing fallacies is that it makes them easy to rebut, not that if you say the right magic phrase your critics disappear.
In the case of a supposed Strawman fallacy it's not enough to say "Strawman" and plug your ears. If you believe your argument is being misrepresented you restate what your actual argument is. So far you haven't presented any argument for "all politicians have definitely done crimes" other than your assumptions that it is true. Me pointing out your Begging the Point and Appeal to Popularity is not a Strawman.
Straw man arguments are literally what you're doing. You invent an argument that has nothing to do with the point I'm making and then try to derail the discussion using it. The most hilarious part is that you just can't let this go. Since it's pretty clear this discussion has run its course, I'm going to move on and let you have the last word that you so desperately need. Enjoy feeling like you've won and online argument.
Of course, when pressed to make an actual point you're taking your ball an going home.
Right, You've been going at this just as long as I have but I have the problem.
It's always projection.