Must be nice to have hindsight.

Even if he were arrested, he almost certainly would have been granted bail until trial because that’s what happens to damn near anyone except for extreme cases based on a variety of factors (and before you bring up Luigi yet again, that variety of factors are entirely different)

Thank God we’ve moved on to age-verification HTTPS requests

Impeach was House. Convict was Senate.

Understood, and I don’t think I said anything to dispute that.

Courts did not say nothing could be done without impeachment because there was no court case.

Incorrect once again! There were 2 cases brought on by Jack Smith. Neither went to trial. Aileen Cannon dismissed one case (Mar a Lago documents, which should have been pretty straightforward if it had a competent judge running things) saying that Jack Smith wasn’t properly appointed (which would be a godsend for the many people who have been convicted under a special prosecutor if that logic actually holds for once).

The other (January 6 and related stuff) had a competent judge who was actually very tough on the J6 rioters previously, but that case got appealed up to SCOTUS which had that horrible “official acts” ruling.

So again, what was in the report that was discovered after the Nov 5th 2024 that would have forced Trump’s conviction?

That was kind of my point on my very first post on this thread. There were things in progress, things that would not have been done if Smith didn’t think he had a good chance at meeting that high burden of proof. There was enough before that report was released, after a ton of work was put into it, but the judicial system did in fact fail here. Not because Trump wasn’t arrested on 1/7/2021, which would have been a short and certain path to nothing (and because of double jeopardy laws, could have lead to a permanent actual exoneration) but because they allowed every avenue to delay, made a few ridiculous rulings, and ultimately Trump somehow got reelected to stop the few moves Smith had left (for example, appealing the docs case dismissal or showing that his January 6 actions weren’t official acts as president)

I’m going to take “4 years ago” to mean January 7, because that’s when you said he should have been arrested.

Metal detectors and stuff came out from the 1/6 committee. That was learned from interviews with witnesses (remember, a witness is someone testifying on their knowledge, not necessarily an eyewitness). That took time to compile who knew what, who is reliable, whose testimony may conflict with someone else’s, who may know more about what someone said, etc.

Some Republicans joined Democrats in the House in the vote to impeach, and some Senators did the same in giving a guilty verdict. The latter was not the 2/3 needed to convict (in the impeachment proceedings, not criminal of course).

The problem is that in the impeachment proceedings, people were saying it’s a problem for the courts. In the courts, they said there’s nothing that could be done if the president wasn’t impeached. That’s some bullshit circular logic, but the real bullshit is that it worked.

There’s a threshold to be met. When you kill someone not in self-defense, your intent isn’t as relevant (maybe there will be a different degree of murder/manslaughter considered, but it’s pretty obvious that there’s something to arrest you for)

Trump had enough left out in his speech (“go to the Capitol building and protest peacefully”, could mean “do the same thing you’re doing here but outside the Capitol building”) to give some plausible deniability on its own. In the months/years to follow, we learned important details like that he knew the crowd was armed (and said to remove the metal detectors). That he knew he lost and didn’t believe the bullshit conspiracies he was spreading (and was advised as much). Things that are very much needed in a criminal trial to reach that proof beyond a reasonable doubt, especially with that intent part of things that’s very hard to prove in cases like this.

Sorry, but if you’re capable of signing a $44 billion contract and the other party has a reasonable expectation that you’ll be able to produce that $44 billion, you’re capable of doing the same steps as someone who wasn’t “joking”. There is no “lol jk” exceptions in contracts.

And honestly, with everything he’s doing now with Xitter and influencing public policy, I believe he knew exactly what he was doing and the “joke” and “uh oh I didn’t mean it!” was part of that

Different cases, different things to prove, different evidence available to prove it. New York v Trump had plenty of evidence, including a paper trail and tons of witnesses. It still took a ton of time to compile it together so that the case would actually end with the guilty verdict, but he WAS convicted of 34 felonies by the end of the process because the prosecution in that case felt they had enough to bring it to trial. Just like any other criminal case that gets prosecuted.

You were saying that Trump should have been arrested on January 7. Then what? A case so poorly put together that he gets acquitted? A conviction that gets overturned on appeal because the defense didn’t have adequate preparation? Just as Trump should be accountable like anyone else (to be clear, he’s a piece of shit and I’m pissed Aileen Cannon and SCOTUS have done him so many favors to put us in this position) he should have the same legal protections as any other defendant. That includes a speedy trial on arrest as the constitution says. I understand you know people who were screwed by the system. That shouldn’t happen to anyone, and definitely shouldn’t be used as a justification to have it happen to more people.

You said

The standards to get a guilty verdict in civil cases aren’t relevant.

They’re not relevant because you don’t get “guilty” verdicts in civil cases. Nuances matter and you’ve been getting them all wrong

You don’t get guilty verdicts in civil cases, as you said. You don’t get convictions. Those are very specific things with very specific meanings, and they do not happen in the civil system

If there’s a problem being applied unequally, you don’t spread it. You fix the problem.

He wasn’t convicted of rape. A jury found that, more likely than not, he sexually assaulted E Jean Carroll in her defamation lawsuit. The same jury found that, more likely than not, he did not rape her but the judge later clarified that those actions constituted rape. All of it was part of a civil lawsuit, where the standard is a preponderance of evidence (basically, that “more likely than not” phrase I used). Criminal trials are brought on differently and need to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, which is a much more difficult burden.

Because that would have happened in the timeline where Trump lost the 2024 election. He didn’t, hence Smith resigning. I don’t like it either, but there’s your answer

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That’s a pretty shitty thing, but the solution is not to extend the shittiness elsewhere, especially since a miss here would vindicate Trump that much more in the eyes of his supporters

It shouldn’t have taken 4 years, no, but there’s a lot of false equivalence in everything else you said. Different crimes, different things that have to be proven (including intent), different witnesses to be interviewed to build that case, etc.

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I believe it. But also… Yeah? Obviously some low-level prosecutors can be sloppy but did we really expect Jack Smith to shoot from the hip and indict without thinking he’ll win in what could/should have been the biggest case of his life?

That would explain why you posted this on Showerthoughts of all places.