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https://sashastone.substack.com/p/tucker-on-trumps-trial

Ep. 27 Donald Trump appeared in court today, but it wasn’t a legal proceeding. It was a grotesque parody of the system our ancestors created. Victor Davis Hanson explains.

The two men framed their discussion around the first day yesterday in Trump’s trial in the New York “Business Fraud” Case. It was presided over by Judge Engoran, who last week issued a remarkable summary judgment order finding that, as a matter of law, Trump committed fraud by “overstating” the value of his very-difficult-to-estimate real estate properties on financial documents Trump used to obtain bank loans.

Loans that were all paid back, on time, with interest.

Imagine that you wanted to borrow $100 to buy supplies for your MAGA hat stand. I ask, “how’s business?” You say it’s great. Then I give you the $100, and a few days later you pay me back $120, just as agreed. I go away. Now the State of New York comes along and says, hey, when you said business was “great,” it wasn’t really “great,” it was only “okay.” You lied. Now we’re going to take your house.

That’s a simplification, but not an exaggeration. One of our democratic republic’s essential concepts is that the government can’t just take citizens’ property, not without proving a great reason or without paying just compensation. Governments only snatch people’s property and businesses in dystopian communist hellholes like Venezuela or Cuba, where private property always somehow finds its way into some pugnacious dictator’s grasping, bloody hands.

Under long-standing New York and common Law, “fraud” is normally found when the state proves four things: (1) the defendant knowingly made a false representation, (2) to a victim who relied on the false representation, (3) the defendant intended the victim to rely on the false representation, and (4) because of that reliance, the victim was injured.

But the State of New York, applying an obscure, patently-unconstitutional statute that’s never been applied this way before, has stripped out all those common-law elements of proof of fraud except for the very first one: the false representation. I guess they had to keep at least one, and they picked the easiest to prove. It’s easiest to prove because all the the judge had to do were some back-of-the-napkin calculations and then say, yep, it was a false representation.

New York has jettisoned the four other fraud elements of: a victim, reliance, intent to deceive, and injury.

Even if the property values were misrepresented on Trump’s financials, whatever that means, by itself that is not fraud, and people should stop calling it that. Trump is being tried for only “lying” or “exaggerating.” And if that’s the standard, Katie bar the door.

In other words, if the government decides Trump lied or exaggerated, he loses. Period, end of story. Welcome to Venezuela, comrade. And no, you can’t also convict Joe Biden for lying. Why not? Because Judge Engoran will just decide Biden didn’t lie, silly. The judge is the gatekeeper who decides who lied and who didn’t.

Yesterday I saw some ignorant commentary from leftists arguing that, maybe there wasn’t a specific victim, but everyone collectively is the “victim,” because Trump’s misrepresentations will inevitably increase everyone else’s loan interest rates, or their insurance premiums, or something. But that’s just woke claptrap, of course, because Trump paid the loans back with interest, causing the banks and insurance companies to be even more profitable, which has the exact opposite effect as the silly leftists claimed.

Getting back to Tucker. The interview — which was framed around Trump’s first day in court — was much broader than that and remarkable in several ways. With Hanson in full agreement, Tucker soberly described our current political situation as a revolution in progress, a unique, defining moment in American history, an ultimate inflection point hurtling toward either salvation and redemption or complete destruction and dystopia.

I was shocked awake when, toward the beginning of the clip, Tucker even asked Hanson, “at what point do Americans take up arms?” Hanson said Americans have been sleeping through the revolution, or mistakenly living in a cheerful fantasy that they can just stop paying attention to Hollywood and the NBA, cut cable, and move to a red state to escape the woke federal government’s grasping tentacles.

Hanson said it won’t work. It’s just delaying the inevitable. While VDH didn’t bite on “taking up arms,” not quite, he repeatedly said Americans have to do “everything possible” to stop it.

Here’s how Hanson ended his comments, which gives you the idea:

“Government can (now) go into a business — all of the business — and appropriate it, and destroy it, without cause. (They) think that’s not only good, but funny… ha ha. The idea is: we now have the power to do this. And because we have the power to do it, it’s moral and right, and if you don’t like it, what are you going to do about it?
And what ARE we going to do about it?
The only thing I can think of is, we’re going to have to humiliate and defeat these people at the polls. You’re going to have to have a 55% supermajority win to get anything done.
We’ve been complacent and culpable for allowing (the leftist spirit to take over our institutions). Now everybody according to their station is gonna have to say, you know what, there are TWO pronouns. I don’t care if you get angry. The date of this country is 1776. Got it? That’s what it is. And there is a border and we’re going to enforce it. And just say NO to all of these things and then welcome the opprobrium and the attacks that accrue accordingly, and welcome that as a badge of honor.
Because what’s the alternative? There is no alternative.”

I was on the fence about reporting Tucker’s interview, because while I do agree we need to do “everything possible” — that’s what I am doing, taking a vast amount of time from my successful law practice to scribble thoughts down for everyone every day — I do agree with that part, but I don’t necessarily agree with the dark hints of pessimism infusing the interview.

Why not? For starters, because of American ingenuity. Self-reliance. Faith. Courage. Competitiveness. While these values have been scarred with marxist acid, blurred by government funding our enemies, and defamed as racist and patriarchal, they have never been destroyed. They still lie at the resolute heart of American culture. No Superman, no false Messiah, will appear from the clouds to save us. We don’t need Superman. We’re going to save ourselves.

The left is going to regret this Trump lawsuit. You’ll see.

On Saturday, Lindell said that his company is now facing five IRS audits related to employees who worked remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"It started in California. Now there's three other states that are coming at MyPillow. And Steve, it's disgusting," Lindell told Bannon on the "War Room" podcast.

"They just keep attacking. Now they're going after our employees. They made it very personal," he added.

SEC Escalates Conflict with Elon Musk

Federal agency probing legality of Musk's $44 billion purchase of Twitter

Some people might be inclined to think that Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter (which he renamed X) on October 28, 2022 was for a fair price. At that time, he paid $54.20 per share for a company that was trading at $38.76, or $15.44 over the market price (at 39% premium).

Given that Mr. Musk was not already the owner of any broadcasting or internet media company, there could be no antitrust laws in question. So what was the problem—that is, why is the SEC suing him for allegedly breaking securities laws?

In May of this year, the SEC announced it was investigating why Musk failed to file the correct form. The agency subpoenaed him to appear at its San Francisco office to provide testimony. Musk has stated he regarded this action as harassment and that he has had enough of the agency’s queries.

Reuters just published a report on this ongoing feud between the powerful federal agency and the world’s richest man, though it’s not very illuminating.

Musk has vehemently expressed his commitment to maintaining free speech in one of the nation’s largest public forums. By spending billions of his own personal funds, he put his money where his mouth is.

One wonders what the SEC’s actions in this matter are really all about.

One wonders what the SEC’s actions in this matter are really all about.

CNN ran a story yesterday headlined, “New York appeals court halts the process of breaking up Trump’s businesses but rejects stopping the trial.”

Trump’s lawyers had a partial win yesterday, when the New York Appellate Court stayed Judge Engoran’s order cancelling all Trump’s New York businesses licenses in the state. The general rationale was that those businesses are separate legal entities and were not represented in the trial and had no chance to argue for themselves.

The appellate court predictably declined to stay the entire trial, which will continue, but the judge’s earlier order is on hold until after the trial and pending further appeal.

Only banana republics like the US make up charges and prosecute opponents of the regime.

US Attorney Refuses to Reveal Names of “Five or Six” People Involved in Decision Not to Prosecute Hunter Biden

Matthew Graves, a Biden-appointed US Attorney for DC and the January 6 lead prosecutor, refused to reveal the names of those involved in a decision to not bring charges against Hunter Biden.

Graves told lawmakers he is “already dealing with enough threats and harassment” in the transcript obtained by Just the News.

He told lawmakers how his office did not partner with US Attorney from Delaware Dave Weiss. Weiss was eventually given special counsel status and charged Hunter Biden with federal crimes related to a gun purchase.

According to the transcript, Graves met with “five or six” people from his office in March 2022 to determine whether Hunter should be charged with tax crimes. Three weeks later Graves’ office decided not to be involved in Hunter Biden’s case, Just the News reported.

DOJ Declined To Charge Senior FBI Employee Who Solicited Prostitutes, Government Watchdog Finds

A U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report released Wednesday found that a senior FBI employee had been soliciting prostitutes from massage parlors, but announced that federal and state criminal prosecutors had declined to press charges.

The OIG was investigating the senior employee after receiving information about them from the FBI suggesting that they frequented massage parlor prostitution fronts run by a foreign national with whom they had an unreported “close or continuous” relationship, in violation of FBI policy, according to the report. The report did not go into detail as to why prosecutors did not pursue the case. ...

a senior FBI employee had been soliciting prostitutes from massage parlors

you will see this all over the world. it’s not an accident, it’s the emergent needs of regimes that are out of rope, out of money and credit, have nothing of value to sell you, and who cannot fool you anymore.

they will censor, vilify, and ultimately attack.

the astonishing inversions to come would have made orwell blanche...

you cannot sustain the illusion of freedom in the face of such blatant machinations and visible manipulation.

and as that dies, so too does legitimacy.

The imposition of a gag order on Trump means a judge can decide what the GOP front-runner can and cannot say in a presidential campaign.

https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/17/the-entire-premise-of-trumps-j6-trial-is-an-affront-to-free-elections-and-rule-of-law/

The imposition of a gag order on Trump means a judge can decide what the GOP front-runner can and cannot say in a presidential campaign.

I know what you’re thinking! You’re wondering whether the FBI is going to track the all these insurrectionists down using advanced image analysis, send stormtroopers to raid all their houses in the wee hours, perp walk them in front of their kids, interrogate their employers, charge them with criminal trespassing and interference, and try them before DC juries before locking them up for one to ten years.

Nope! It will never happen. What a silly question. They vote democrat. They’re not worried about it at all.

While House and Senate oversight committees were investigating the Department of Justice and the FBI for their role in the Russia-collusion hoax, the DOJ subpoenaed the private phone and email logs of multiple congressional staffers, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed Tuesday reveals. The executive branch’s targeting of staffers assisting with congressional oversight of the DOJ and FBI represents a dangerous intrusion into the legislative branch’s functioning — and one that demands answers and an accounting.

On Tuesday, the Virginia-based whistleblower firm Empower Oversight dispatched a letter to the attorney general and a slew of other DOJ officials, including the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. That letter detailed how the organization’s founder, Jason Foster, learned last week from a notice provided by Google that the DOJ had subpoenaed records of his Google Voice telephone number. The subpoena issued to Google required the tech giant to provide all telephone connection records and text message logs for Foster’s private Google account from Dec. 1, 2016, to May 1, 2017.

In the “you can’t make this stuff up” department, the UK Daily Mail ran a story yesterday headlined, “Biden-appointed prosecutor ADMITS he declined to prosecute Hunter for tax crimes because he was 'short-staffed.”




Diverse U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada, a Joe Biden-appointed DOJ prosecutor, tendered a sworn statement to Congress this week wherein he testified he declined to prosecute Hunter Biden — Joe Biden’s son — for very serious crimes because, and this is 100% true and not made up, Estrada explained he was ‘short-staffed.’

In other words, Mr. Estrada was just too busy. What can I tell you? Crime fighting can get pretty hectic. There is a very technical and complicated interplay between DOJ assignments that ordinary Americans cannot fully appreciate: “Every attorney you assign to a case means you can't do another case,” Estrada sniffed, according to his October 24th House Judiciary transcript.

But … somehow, the DOJ has not been too busy to prosecute thousands of regular citizens for misdemeanor trespassing. US Attorneys also weren’t too busy to investigate homeschool moms for criticizing school board members. And they weren’t too busy to investigate abortion clinic protestors for civil rights violations. And they aren’t too busy to investigate Tesla for “exaggerating” the range of its battery-powered cars.

A car company exaggerating car features? That is way more important than stopping a president’s son from peddling influence to shady oligarchs all over the worst parts of the world. I mean, be serious.

“Biden-appointed prosecutor ADMITS he declined to prosecute Hunter for tax crimes because he was 'short-staffed.”