Only 1 in 3 US adults think Trump acted illegally in New York hush money case, AP-NORC poll shows

Desk trauma said:

Yes, poorest most persecuted man ever, our man of perpetual victimhood.

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It's a damning indictment to the human psyche that people fall so readily for a person who does such a poor job of hiding his indiscretions.

Valletta said:

Criminal charges in four jurisdictions at once against the leading candidate for president in election season.

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You keep saying this, but when he was charged was he "the leading candidate" for president of the US?

Trump was first indicted in the current case at the end of March 2023. At that time Trump was *a* leading candidate for the *Republican nomination* as he held modest lead over the Florida governor. (The two of them were clearly the 2 leading candidates for the GOP nomination.) If there is *a* leading candidate for president that early in the election cycle it would be a first-term incumbent president, though President Biden wouldn't declare his candidacy until 4 weeks later.

Then we have your "at once" claim. The four indictments span 6 months (March - August 2023) and were not "at once". Anticipating your next objection (on the investigations and why it took so long/why the charges "bunched up" in mid-2023.)...

The NY County case (opening statements at trial just concluded) started with the NY Co. DA learning of a possible crime with the arrest of Michael Cohen by the Feds for his part in the crime (and other unrelated tax charges) as a spin-off of the Mueller investigation. Later they learned from Mr. Cohen of other potential frauds related to real estate evaluations and taxes. Ultimately the outgoing NY Co. DA chose to charge either case and the NY (state) AG *did* decide to go ahead with civil action about the real estate related frauds. (Both potential criminal cases were also delayed because Trump was still president.) In January 2022 a new DA took office, reexamined the case and resumed the investigation. A grand jury was involved from Jan-March 2023.

The two Jan 6th/election fraud cases (Fulton Co (Georgia) DA, Special Counsel DC case) involve crimes that were committed in Nov 2020- Jan 2021. The Fulton Co DA opened an investigation in Feb 2021 and empaneled a special jury for investigation in Jan 2022. (It issued subpoenas in the summer of that year and a report in Dec 2022.) The indictment was filed in Aug 2023. The federal case also starts investigating almost immediately after the event. While the Georgia case looks messy with about 20 defendants and dozens of charges, the DOJ Jan6th/electoral fraud case is much more complicated. They had to deal with thousands of largely unknown potential criminals with varying degrees of culpability and determine if any coordinated activity or planning took place. The "top down" part of the investigation which lead to Trump's indictment involved the investigation of lawyers and politicians which definitely slows things down. (Most of the 6 or 7 unindicted co-conspirators listed in Trump's DC indictment are lawyers.) Anything less than 2 years to get to charging was probably very unlikely, 2.5 year doesn't seem so slow in retrospect.)

The final case (the Florida classified documents case) involved charged crimes that begin *after* Trump leaves office (immediately after when his retention of the documents was unauthorized) and continues to Aug 2022 with the "FBI raid" at his country club. The indictment came just 10 months later.

Valletta said:

Criminal charges in four jurisdictions at once against the leading candidate for president in election season.

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To be fair, he was also involved in a significant number of legal issues before his 2016 campaign even started : USA TODAY Network: Dive into Donald Trump's thousands of lawsuits

Seems like the guy just manages to end up in court a whole lot. Pretending it is something new runs counter to reality.

Valletta said:

Unfortunately a number of that one third may be jurors.

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Which is why they are told what the law is, so that they understand what constitutes guilt under that law. There can always be a juror who decides that he or she doesn't care what the law is, but hopefully, they will decide based on the law.

Valletta said:

Everyone involved, ever D.A., every judge that is attacking our Constitution, that has violated the law, needs to be held accountable. That is how it should be.

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Like the president who called his followers to go to the Capitol and "fight like hell" to stop Congress from certifying the election of Joe Biden?

Valletta said:

A jury of peers does not mean a jury of Joe Biden supporters.

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In fact, the law is indifferent to their political persuasions, so long as they can be impartial. And attacking the judge's daughter was a dumb idea. If Trump can't avoid threatening the children of court personnel, he has no business whining if there are consequences.

I get that he's angry and scared as consequences for his actions are now ensuing. But that's how it works in a free country. No one is above the law, and that's a very good thing.

The Barbarian said:

If Trump can't avoid threatening the children of court personnel, he has no business whining if there are consequences.

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Let's be honest. He's not going to enamour himself to any jury members by doing so.

Let's face it, if you present well to the judge and the jury, if you can convince them by your demeanour that you are an upright citizen, truthful, honest and respectable then there is a tendency for people to trust you. And trust what you're saying. And that might well tip the balance in your favour. As opposed to thinking 'This guy's a jerk. He deserves whatever's coming.'

Bradskii said:

Let's face it, if you present well to the judge and the jury, if you can convince them by your demeanour that you are an upright citizen, truthful, honest and respectable then there is a tendency for people to trust you. And trust what you're saying. And that might well tip the balance in your favour. As opposed to thinking 'This guy's a jerk. He deserves whatever's coming.'

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That's his strength and his weakness. His grift is "I'm rich and powerful and strong, and I win when I want. Join me." But on trial, that message is kind of what you suggest.

The Barbarian said:

That's his strength and his weakness. His grift is "I'm rich and powerful and strong, and I win when I want. Join me." But on trial, that message is kind of what you suggest.

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'His grift' is the right term. It's certainly not his gift for oratory. Which is quite frankly dismal. He just tells people what they want to hear. But that only gets you the people who want to hear it. Couple it with a touch of the common man, some humility, a glimpse of genuine concern for others, including those who oppose you, some genuine passion and you have a winning combination. But he's psychologically incapable of it.

There's a gap in the market for someone who has those abilities. And they're not uncommon. Imagine someone with the humility of Carter, the vocal expertise of Reagan, the respectfullness of Bush snr, the common touch of Clinton, the intellect of Obama, the depth of political knowledge of Biden, the oratory of Kennedy, the aw-shucks everyman of Bush jnr and the Machivaelian rat cunning of Nixon...

I only know of one politician in my lifetime that came close to having all those. And that was Bob Hawke, PM of Australia from '83 to '91. They're a dying breed (maybe worth a thread as to discuss why).

Valletta said:

Yet, a cloud of doubt hangs over all the proceedings. Only about 3 in 10 Americans feel that any of the prosecutors who have brought charges against Trump are treating the former president fairly. And only about 2 in 10 Americans are extremely or very confident that the judges and jurors in the cases against him can be fair and impartial.

“It’s very obvious political persecution,” said Christopher Ruff, a 46-year-old political independent and museum curator from Sanford, North Carolina. “I’m no fan of Trump in any way, shape or form. Didn’t vote for him, never will. But it’s obviously all political.”

Only 1 in 3 US adults think Trump acted illegally in New York hush money case, AP-NORC poll shows

A poll shows the first criminal trial facing former President Donald Trump is also the one in which Americans are least convinced he committed a crime

abcnews.go.com

It's disturbing that one third of the people think Trump is guilty. Obviously there are a number of areas like New York City where people get almost all of their news from the same biased sources. It would have been interesting to ask that one third how many knew that the statute of limitations had run out on any misdemeanor charge and that those out to get Trump somehow twisted it into a felony charge.

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It's " disturbing" to assume other than innocent until
proven guilty.

And considering how often in usa or elsewhere
people are accused and imprisoned unjustly,
it's unreasonable to overlook that and assume
what's true or false.