this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2025
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Donald Trump would have been convicted of crimes over his failed attempt to cling to power in 2020 if he had not won the presidential election in 2024, according to the special counsel who investigated him.

Jack Smith’s report (***the report is 174 pages long) detailing his team’s findings about Trump’s efforts to subvert democracy was released by the justice department early on Tuesday.

Following the insurrection on 6 January, 2021, Smith was appointed as special counsel to investigate Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. His investigation culminated in a detailed report, submitted to the attorney general, Merrick Garland.

Volume one of the report meticulously outlines Trump’s actions, including his efforts to pressure state officials, assemble alternate electors and encourage supporters to protest against the election results.

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[–] FelixCress@lemmy.world 223 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)
[–] ddash@lemmy.dbzer0.com 89 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Yeah, that's just a lame excuse. It just conveniently took too long, ah shucks, if only he hadn't won, gosh darnit.

[–] Eatspancakes84@lemmy.world 95 points 3 weeks ago

We have to distinguish between Jack Smith who started in 2022, and was extremely unlucky with respect to court decisions, and Garland who wasted 2 years before appointing Smith.

[–] proper@lemmy.world 78 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

canon delayed it, not smith. did everyone forget about all that?

[–] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 51 points 3 weeks ago

Exactly. Corruption is what made it take so long, not the prosecutor.

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago

did everyone forget about all that?

Well, yeah. There's too much stuff going on deliberately to keep track of everything and remember the details months or years after the fact.

[–] CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net 38 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 46 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Blame Garland

And Biden, and democrats in congress for not pushing to fucking get it done for 2 years.
And Pelosi for preventing any action and protecting Trump while he was president, and she was majority leader.
And Mueller for making a mockery of the special investigation, dragging it out for years, and then having done just about the narrowest investigation possible, and letting traitors walk despite clear evidence.

It's fucking incompetence all the way through, to a degree it must be perceived as maliciousness, and that both parties are in on it.

Goddam I'm happy to live in a country that doesn't effectively have a 2 party system. I cannot fathom how Americans tolerate their idiotic flawed democracy for almost 250 years now! Isn't it about time to modernize? And yet American politicians boast of their democracy and claim to protect democracy around the world, when they fucking can't even figure it out for their own country!

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 10 points 3 weeks ago

Interrupting the peaceful transition of power should have been the Day 1 job of the justice department. Not the second year job of Jack Smith.

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[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 98 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Congratulations to the American people, for having the guts to elect a crazy criminal malignant narcissist idiot for president.
I doubt many places would have the guts to do that.
To be entirely honest, this makes me doubt we will make it as a species.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 58 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

To be entirely honest, this makes me doubt we will make it as a species.

On election day when he didn't lose by a landslide I had the same thought even before all the results were in. The level of idiotic selfish spitefulness required to keep him from losing by a country mile after all that's happened is absurd.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

IDK why you are downvoted, maybe it's the double negative?

But just to make it clear, keep from losing = winning.
So corrected for double negative:

The level of idiotic selfish spitefulness required for him to win..

And yes I agree completely, it's insane he even had a chance, and it says a LOT about the American society as a whole is mentally ill.

Not everybody, but enough to make it a systemic problem throughout everything in society. It must be hell to live in USA as a normal person!

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Thanks, yeah I'm not sure. Maybe my wording is confusing.. it's early here. And I'm pissed. I don't want to live in a world where a person is rewarded heartily for being all the horrible shitty things we were all taught not to be. It almost feels like morality was invented to keep everyone from having the balls to lash out against these absolute sociopath types.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Americans are indoctrinated with values of individual freedom to a degree where Malignant narcissism has become a virtue, and it shows throughout all aspects of society.
Everything that benefit common good is demonized. Like food stamps, social welfare, healthcare for all, protection of minorities, lack of union rights, insane gun rights, and abolishing free abortion, and even sex education.
It's in everything American in society, and USA is so far removed from other developed countries it's more like a very poor developing country in many aspects.
It's all about oppressing the non privileged, to give more privileges to the already privileged.

Now people are even getting away with claiming slavery wasn't so bad!!

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

You're right. It's sold as "believe X if you like freedom" when the reality is "believe X to keep the rich's boot on your neck, necessarily decreasing freedom". It's not a freedom for your kid to die by a school shooter, but somehow millions believe it is.

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[–] Lupus@feddit.org 22 points 3 weeks ago

Congratulations to the American people, for having the guts to elect a crazy criminal malignant narcissist idiot for president.

Twice!

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 19 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

The Covid response taught me we're doomed.

If we can't get people to wear masks and get vaccinated for a disease that's actively killing millions we ain't gonna do shit over climate change.

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[–] Allonzee@lemmy.world 90 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (8 children)

Voted for Harris out of usual attempted harm reduction because this place is irreparably destroyed since Reagan, but let's not kid ourselves, Donald Trump represents the United States as it is perfectly.

Proudly ignorant, proudly greedy, proudly gluttonous, obese, egotistical, explicitly judges others on net worth, perpetually drunk on cruelty and schaudenfreude, obsessed with image and his own ego score, demands loyalty and servitude while providing none aka a devout capitalist, obsessed with economic metastasis at literally any human and societal cost, proudly racist while still insisting he's not, the embodiment of what Americans disgustingly praise: a hyperindividualist who revels in blaming people not born to wealth for their suffering and insists this is a meritocracy after a lifetime of spending daddy's money.

Donald Trump is like the zeitgeist of the modern United States somehow took tangible human form. You can try to argue we don't deserve him, or that we have the potential to be a better society than one that would elect him, but you can't argue he represents who and what a loathsome society we are. A monument of all our sins.

He's more American as apple pie or baseball ever was, and he's at least as American as our current national pastimes of mass shootings and of course disgusting hyper-consumption.

That's why he illicits such a strong response in both directions. Whether you are repulsed or see your own necrotic heart in him, He is an accurate mirror of the practiced culture of The United States of America.

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 20 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

One of the all time greatest comments on Lemmy. Bravo.

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[–] FilthyHookerSpit@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm not happy about it but you're right 😡👍

[–] Allonzee@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I'm not either. But I find peace in understanding, even if the answers suck, as this one does.

If I had an in anywhere in Europe, I'd leave and never look back.

I phone banked for Sanders twice, but have finally accepted this place would take generations of concerted effort to be anything less than cruel and inhuman. It's too proud of the core causes of its rot (worshipped sociopathic "free to die in the streets market" economy, pride in individualism over community or society, social resentment of paying into Commons like public Ed, greed seen as virtue rather than character deficit and social ill, etc) to want to change.

Ask any therapist, if someone isn't seeking change, you won't get anywhere with them. We want things to get better, but we still want to dream of being millionaires and billionaires, and to remain addicted to harmful social opiates like social media, fast food, extreme consumerism, literal opiates, etc.

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[–] ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 75 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

They say the US justice system moves slowly, but this is incredibly slow. I'm not an American, but if I was I would be very disappointed.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 59 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Investigations of Trump reliably conclude just after it becomes impossible for them to have any effect on him. It feels a little deliberate on the part of both Republicans and Democrats.

[–] ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 32 points 3 weeks ago

Looking in from the outside I don't think that's what's happening. It's just the US legal system being very pliable if you have enough capital. Which isn't great.

[–] Strider@lemmy.world 36 points 3 weeks ago

It's only slow for some. For others it's fast.

[–] Blumpkinhead@lemmy.world 36 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You can still be disappointed.

[–] ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 21 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Sure. I can, but I can't vote in the US so I find that spending my emotional energy on that has fairly limited effects.

[–] ReanuKeeves@lemm.ee 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I still find it sad that we live in a world where a large amount of people praise felons

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[–] qarbone@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago

I am very disappointed.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 65 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)
[–] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 39 points 3 weeks ago

Let's be fair here, they only had 4 years to get this done. A mere 1460 days or 35040 hours.

[–] PhAzE@lemmy.ca 23 points 3 weeks ago

Maga won't do it and libs are pussies. The US summed up in one sentence.

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[–] RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world 38 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Well that sucks. Harris winning would have been nice.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 17 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (6 children)

But don't you understand? The genocide totally would've been worse or even the same. Something something duopoly! /s

Edit: to be clear, if you argued against voting for Harris, this is partially your fault. And I'm done with you. Write me a shitty reply here to be added to the blocklist. I'm all out of patience for your types.

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[–] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 29 points 3 weeks ago

Everything republicans do is based in fear, spite, and greed.

They fear brown people and immigrants, so they deport them, only to bring them back in as indentured servants, to spite the poor people that refuse to work for less than the minimum wage, to personally enrich themselves.

Greed, Spite, Fear.

If they had been born German in the early 1900's, they wouldn't just be nazis, they'd be enthusiastic nazis.

[–] BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 21 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Well, I think we can all agree that Trump and the Republican party have certainly learned from all this and will in no way attempt to hold power if they lose another election.

I also predict that the Republican party will coincidentally lose fewer elections from now on.

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[–] Loce@lemmy.world 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Is there a law in this country or is it everything a fucking popularity contest? USA is just a crazy distopian tv-show at this point.

[–] tiefling@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

It's a reality TV show called America's Got Oligarchy

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Can they impeach him once he's in office?

If the dems manage to take back congress in 2 years I wouldn't be surprised if he's bogged down in impeachment proceedings for the rest of his term.

Also out of interest, can private citizens take forward the prosecution? The justice department is being stopped for political reasons but is there anything to stop a private citizens group or organisation taking forward the prosecution based on the evidence noted in the report?

[–] shadearg@lemmy.world 20 points 3 weeks ago

Impeachment number three would be wild, but let's be realistic. It's gonna happen, anyway.

Charlie Murphy coined it best: habitual line stepper

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 17 points 3 weeks ago

Literally above the law.

[–] DrFistington@lemmy.world 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

When brains and ballots fail, bullets are the last line of exacting justice.

[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

When the rules change to suit the needs of the 1%, there are no rules.

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[–] snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They would have convicted him and then done what to teflon Don?

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Well obviously Trump belongs in jail. And if they followed the law, he would be.

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[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I actually believed this, I think the Supreme Court was actually waiting to see if Trump was going to be re-elected or not.

If he wasn't they'd have played the "You have outlived your usefulness" card and thrown him to the wolves.

Since he won, well... "You gotta respect the office"

For the record, normally I agree with "Even if you hate the guy, you have to respect the office.", well, in better days I did.

Now, if the person in question shows clear contempt for the office, you do not have to do any such thing.

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[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 weeks ago

Impeach and arraign.

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