• davidagain@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Surely Trump just appeals to the SCOTUS and they free him in line with today’s ruling?

    • EmptySlime@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      Wouldn’t be that simple. The Stormy Daniels case was about things that happened before he became president. Sure reimbursing Cohen might have occurred at least in part while Trump was president, but Cohen was never part of the administration. They were disguising the reimbursement as paying Cohen in his capacity as Trump’s personal lawyer. So there’s pretty much nothing that this ruling does to hamper this case.

      That said, I have no doubts that they’d find some way to rule in his favor if an appeal managed to land in front of them. But I think he’d have to go through normal appeals first, he can’t just go straight to SCOTUS.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        It’ll be interesting to see how stiffing your lawyer is an official act

        • EmptySlime@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          4 months ago

          Yeah. The Roberts Court has been nothing if not the Court of Post-Hoc Justification. They’re great at concocting the most batshit crazy of legal theories to reach the outcome they want after shopping for the perfect cases to do so. I’m absolutely positive that if/when he gets an appeal to reach SCOTUS they’ll give him exactly what he wants even if they have to tie themselves in logical pretzels or even directly contradict themselves to do it.

          • Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz
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            4 months ago

            They ruled on a goddamn hypothetical. 6-3.

            None of the conservative judges are qualified to do anything except take leaves.

            • EmptySlime@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              4 months ago

              They’ve pulled that one a lot recently, haven’t they? I seem to recall one of the other recent rulings, I think it was against the EPA basically being a hypothetical about a proposed rule they hadn’t even actually passed yet?

    • Atom@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      SCOTUS can’t do shit for state charges. Doesn’t mean they won’t try.

      However, His legal team will argue literally any punishment is too harsh and appeal the NY state charges, which will be granted because he was a president and has money. Then it will be delayed past the election and not matter anyway because this system is not made to resist willful destruction by those entrusted to protect it.

      Edit: Turns out they can. The NY prosecution has agreed to postpone charges less than a day after the ruling. Trump’s team asserts that the criminal activities occurred before he was president, but since the evidence was gathered during, he can not be prosecuted. Apparently concealing evidence unrelated to the presidency is an official act…

      • slickgoat@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        There’s move afoot by the GOP to get any state charges against the president to be elevated to the Federal court.

        Guess who can pardon himself or have federal charges dropped?

        • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          That’s not how Federalism works. The President is not a member of any state government, and has no immunity from state crimes. There’s no way to move this case from state court to federal.

      • slickgoat@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        They cannot currently cancel state charges, but the GOP is trying to change that. It is one of a raft of measures underway. Some are truely frightening, such as using Red State National Guard troops against non-compliant Blue States. Check out Project 2025 - the Republicans are even trying to hide their planned dictatorship.