Twitter, owned by Musk, fought for months for the right to tell Trump about Special Counsel Jack Smith’s search warrant for his account.

  • PeleSpirit@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Oh boy, the next few months are going to get exciting.

    Initially, the government also claimed that another reason to keep the warrant a secret from Trump was the risk that he might flee the country, but the government later retracted that reason, saying it had been mistakenly included. Tellingly, the court agreed with this reason, as well, before the prosecutors retracted it as a mistake.

    • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The main reason is destroying evidence. This is a guy that would literally eat memos and flush paperwork down the toilet while in the white house.

      • athos77@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        You forgot that they (Trump’s people, maybe Trump himself) repeatedly burnt government documents in the White House fireplaces.

        • chaos@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          White House fireplaces

          One of my favorite West Wing episodes

          Mr. President, you know how you told me not to wake you unless the building is on fire?

          • athos77@kbin.social
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            [White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told White House staffers to keep some Oval Office meetings “close hold” during the transition period, potentially leaving meetings off the books […]. [Mark Meadows’ aide Cassidy] Hutchinson also testified that there “were certain things that had potentially been left off” the Oval Office diary. […] Additionally, she told the committee that she saw Meadows burn documents in his office fireplace around a dozen times – about once or twice a week – between December 2020 and mid-January 2021.

            Source

      • PeleSpirit@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Oh for sure, but if the judge thinks it’s a possibility he could flee, that’s interesting to me. I hope Smith gets that January court date and we’ll know soon enough if he evades his secret service, lol.

        • RojoSanIchiban@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I and at least literally ‘ones’ of others figured he’d be off to Russia or more likely Saudi Arabia as soon as he left office because he was scared shitless of being thrown in jail.

          Now, naturally I’m a bit pissed he hasn’t been held, at least on the Jan 6th charges, if not the damn espionage act indictment. “Two-tiered” justice, indeed.

        • Hubi@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          I had always hoped that Trump would try to escape to Russia. It would’ve been the icing on the shit cake.

    • hogunner@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’ve been convinced for a while now that if Trump felt he was actually headed to jail his last desperate act would be to try to flee to North Korea to hide behind his crazy bestie Kim (who would absolutely love the drama of having an ex-POTUS as his puppet to parade around and try to shame the US with).

      • Godric@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Nah, he’d go for Russia. Not enough diet Coke or well done-steaks with ketchup for Donnie in NK.

        • hogunner@lemmy.world
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          I don’t doubt that Trump would want to go to Russia but Putin would never agree to that when he could have all the same benefits if Donnie was in NK and none of the negatives of having him in Russia. Kim is crazy enough that he wouldn’t care and would enjoy all the extra scrutiny and attention.

          • QHC@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Kim isn’t crazy. He was raised from birth believing he is the divine ruler of a people and received a modern education. He is acting in the best interests of the state he leads. It just happens that most of us on this platform likely live in a part of the world where those interests don’t make sense or are hard to see or just don’t seem important. But that’s an “us” problem.

            His public persona in the West is a combination of propaganda from multiple angles, much like we see around Russia and China, too.

            I’m not saying that he is a good leader or has the health of North Koreans in mind, but be aware that not everything you hear about living in North Korea is necessarily accurate (and not necessarily due to outside actors, either).

      • QHC@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        How long would Trump actually survive if he lived in North Korea? Do they have McDonalds and Diet Coke?

    • QHC@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I wonder why the prosecution team thought that was a “mistake”, or if it was intentionally included and then retracted? Maybe it’s standard language?

      • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Not a lawyer but lawyers write draft arguments and then choose the ones they think are the best. It’s possible they put the flight risk argument in a draft but ultimately decided to remove it, but then sent it out before actually removing it.

      • PeleSpirit@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m not a lawyer but my guess is that they didn’t want a court fight about it when their best reason was enough.

      • MorrisonMotel6@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        The “standard language” thing sounds right to me. A lot of court filings templates and attorneys just plug in the facts for their particular submission.

        Which unfortunately reminds me of Mad Libs, and now this is all getting pretty absurd in my head

        • QHC@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Is that mandatory? Pretty sure it’s a service offered to former Presidents, but Trump could probably just say no.

          He hasn’t (and probably won’t) do that because he likes feeling important, and because he ain’t paying for their services.