2020 Election Thread

[Mori Chu]

Methinks Rudy may be in some trouble. I was reading that Trump may have issued "secret" private pardons to Rudy, himself, and/or his children or others. But if he did so, they would likely not have legal weight.

I read up on defamation, and actually it's hard to win a defamation case. You have to show 3-4 specific things, including:

- That the statements the person made are false.
- That the statements caused specific quantifiable harm.
- That they KNEW they were false and potentially harmful, or had reasonable belief they were false and harmful, but made the statements anyway.

It's pretty tough to prove all of that beyond a reasonable doubt. In this case, I think Rudy may be liable here because he was repeatedly informed by Dominion and others that his statements were false and defamatory and still kept making them.

[In2ition]

How can you issue "secret" private pardons? Don't they have to be made public? I mean, if he gets arrested or charged with something that happened in the past, can he just pull out his trusty "Get out of Jail Free" card he has stashed away in his wallet? Reminds me of Lethal Weapon 2 where the bad guy is a South African diplomat and he says, "Diplomatic Immunity" as he's killing people.

[Indy]

How can you issue "secret" private pardons? Don't they have to be made public? I mean, if he gets arrested or charged with something that happened in the past, can he just pull out his trusty "Get out of Jail Free" card he has stashed away in his wallet? Reminds me of Lethal Weapon 2 where the bad guy is a South African diplomat and he says, "Diplomatic Immunity" as he's killing people.

No. You have to file them with the DOJ, but you don't have to tell anyone about them. At least, there is not legal requirement to do so. Every previous pardon in history has been made public, though.

[In2ition]

How can you issue "secret" private pardons? Don't they have to be made public? I mean, if he gets arrested or charged with something that happened in the past, can he just pull out his trusty "Get out of Jail Free" card he has stashed away in his wallet? Reminds me of Lethal Weapon 2 where the bad guy is a South African diplomat and he says, "Diplomatic Immunity" as he's killing people.

No. You have to file them with the DOJ, but you don't have to tell anyone about them. At least, there is not legal requirement to do so. Every previous pardon in history has been made public, though.

That's kind of what I thought. Thanks

[Indy]

But you can get any secret ones through FOIA, it just might take a while.

[In2ition]

You know that the super secret double Platinum "Get Out of Jail Free" card is the best though. Even you have to admit that, Indy.

[BKinSJC]

Methinks Rudy may be in some trouble. I was reading that Trump may have issued "secret" private pardons to Rudy, himself, and/or his children or others. But if he did so, they would likely not have legal weight.

I read up on defamation, and actually it's hard to win a defamation case. You have to show 3-4 specific things, including:
.......

You're mostly right here, Mori, with a couple of exceptions.

- That the statements the person made are false.
- That the statements caused specific quantifiable harm.
- That they KNEW they were false and potentially harmful, or had reasonable belief they were false and harmful, but made the statements anyway.

This third point is talking about two different levels of evidence required. In essence, there are two different standards, one for people (or corporations) that are considered "private figures" and the other for "public figures." A public figure is someone in the public eye, a politician, a celebrity, a sports star ... people who everybody know, or someone who has put themselves voluntarily at the center of a public debate or discussion regarding a given issue (a "limited purpose" public figure). Everyone else is a private figure.

For purposes of discussion about the election, Dominion would almost certainly be considered to be acting in a "public figure" capacity. They are a corporation that makes hardware and software designed for voting, something that is very much in the interest of the general public, and therefore have opened themselves up to the possibility of being publicly criticized if someone feels that an election might have been compromised through misuse or tampering with the machines.

Because there is more general interest in talking about public figures, it is more difficult for them to successfully make a defamation claim: they need to show either that the false statement was made by the other person with "actual knowledge" that it was false, or that the other person acted with "reckless disregard" for the truth in making the statement. The term that you'll see for this is "acting with actual malice." As you said, this is hard to prove, and is the reason why statements made about public figures are seldom shown to be defamatory (it does happen; the National Enquirer, for instance, has lost a couple of such cases).

It's pretty tough to prove all of that beyond a reasonable doubt.

However, if "actual malice" could be shown in this case, it wouldn't have to "beyond a reasonable doubt." That is the general standard of proof in a criminal case, while defamation is a civil wrong / tort. So the burden of proof on Dominion would be "preponderance of the evidence," which is to say, "more likely than not" that the evidence favors Dominion in this case. These different standards are part of the reason why, for instance, you get things like the OJ Simpson case where a defendant is found not guilty in a criminal case, but on essentially the same evidence may be found liable for damages in a civil case.

(Edit - Now I'm wrong on something I just said ... I'm a little rusty on this stuff, and forgot that there's actually a WHOLE SEPARATE standard of proof for actual malice cases - "clear and convincing evidence." It sits somewhere between "preponderance" and "beyond a reasonable doubt" ... if "preponderance" is 51% sure and "beyond a reasonable doubt" is 99.99% sure, then "clear and convincing" is probably more like 85% sure, probably on a somewhat sliding scale, and "don't ask me to define it for sure, I'll know it when I see it.")

[Mori Chu]

Thanks for the updates, BK. I do find this stuff interesting and am curious to see whether Dominion has a case.

[Nodack]

Two Capital Police working on Jan 6 during the insurrection on the Capital have committed suicide? WTF? Why would they do that? I have combed the articles and all they say is that they died and gave no details other than suicide. Some of the Police have been hailed as hero’s for their actions on Jan 6 and some have been accused of helping the insurrection. I hope we hear more details later. All we can do is speculate.

Two police officers died by suicide after responding to Capitol riot
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/27/politics ... index.html

Second police officer died by suicide following Capitol attack
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/2 ... iot-463123

Second Officer Commits Suicide After Responding to Capitol Siege
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-ne ... itol-siege

[Superbone]

Yeah, I was curious about the suicides too. I don't get it. Is it because they are so sad that there are people like this in our country that they can't stand to be a part of it anymore?

[Nodack]

Yeah, I was curious about the suicides too. I don't get it. Is it because they are so sad that there are people like this in our country that they can't stand to be a part of it anymore?

Or was it because they were in on it thinking they were being patriotic that day helping the Trump supporters only to realize later they were traitors and couldn’t live with it knowing fellow officers were killed and beaten?

Just a what if guess.

[Superbone]

Yeah, I was curious about the suicides too. I don't get it. Is it because they are so sad that there are people like this in our country that they can't stand to be a part of it anymore?

Or was it because they were in on it thinking they were being patriotic that day helping the Trump supporters only to realize later they were traitors and couldn’t live with it knowing fellow officers were killed and beaten?

Just a what if guess.

Hmm. That seems like a better guess and makes more sense to me.

[Cap]

Yeah, I was curious about the suicides too. I don't get it. Is it because they are so sad that there are people like this in our country that they can't stand to be a part of it anymore?

Or was it because they were in on it thinking they were being patriotic that day helping the Trump supporters only to realize later they were traitors and couldn’t live with it knowing fellow officers were killed and beaten?

Just a what if guess.

Hmm. That seems like a better guess and makes more sense to me.

Or the other way around: maybe they did their jobs in the moment and then couldn’t live with having betrayed their cult.

[ShelC]

I've been watching those headlines too to see if there have been any reasons given. Police officers do have high suicide rates and with the suicides coming after the riot, they could've been suffering from PTSD. Would hate to jump to any conclusions about involvement or planning with the rioters or that they were under investigation for some kind of participation but who knows at this point.

[Superbone]

Yeah, I was curious about the suicides too. I don't get it. Is it because they are so sad that there are people like this in our country that they can't stand to be a part of it anymore?

Or was it because they were in on it thinking they were being patriotic that day helping the Trump supporters only to realize later they were traitors and couldn’t live with it knowing fellow officers were killed and beaten?

Just a what if guess.

Hmm. That seems like a better guess and makes more sense to me.

Or the other way around: maybe they did their jobs in the moment and then couldn’t live with having betrayed their cult.

Just feels a lot less likely to me.

[Indy]

I've been watching those headlines too to see if there have been any reasons given. Police officers do have high suicide rates and with the suicides coming after the riot, they could've been suffering from PTSD. Would hate to jump to any conclusions about involvement or planning with the rioters or that they were under investigation for some kind of participation but who knows at this point.

I don;t think they have numbers yet from 2020, but 2019 was like 275 cop suicides for the entire US. It is strange to have 2 from one smallish department in the span of a couple weeks, when large states typically don't see two in a month.

[Nodack]

It was a pretty traumatic event. I imagine some cops still wake up in a cold sweat.

[Nodack]

First on CNN: Trump's impeachment defense team leaves less than two weeks before trial
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/30/politics ... index.html
It was a dramatic development in the second impeachment trial for Trump, who has struggled to find lawyers willing to take his case. And now, with legal briefs due next week and a trial set to begin only days later, Trump is clinging to his election fraud charade and suddenly finds himself without legal representation.

A person familiar with the departures told CNN that Trump wanted the attorneys to argue there was mass election fraud and that the election was stolen from him rather than focus on the legality of convicting a president after he's left office. Trump was not receptive to the discussions about how they should proceed in that regard.

[ShelC]

Yea but nothing matters because the GOP won't convict. What's the point of rules, laws and impeachment if they won't hold anyone accountable? They're all just protecting themselves which is why we are where we are.

[Nodack]

Ukraine stayed quiet during Trump-era pressures. Now it's sharing some Giuliani tales.
https://www.greenwichtime.com/news/arti ... 910420.php
Giuliani's tone and actions during his dealings with the Ukrainians were "aggressive and threatening," said one Zelensky insider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

But the Ukrainians, he said, steadfastly refused to "play ball."

"Until we were 100% certain that Rudy was the go-to guy, and nothing would happen without him, we were trying to avoid him as much as possible," said Igor Novikov, who served an adviser to Zelensky until August and was a member of the team tasked with responding to U.S. overtures during the Trump administration.

"But then toward the end of June, we realized that we couldn't achieve anything with Trump without talking to Rudy first," Novikov said.

Volker mentioned the phone call briefly in his testimony, saying that it was short and that he did not remember any discussion of Ukraine opening investigations.

Novikov, however, said the call lasted more than 40 minutes, during which Giuliani spelled out what he wanted.

The Giuliani wish list, according to Novikov: Zelensky would publicly announce the launch of investigations into Burisma and allegations that Ukrainian officials conspired to interfere in the 2016 presidential elections.

"Just let these investigations go forward, get someone to investigate them," Novikov recalled Giuliani saying. Furthermore, Giuliani wanted a public statement from Zelensky "at the right time" saying that he supports the investigations. It would "clear the air really well," Giuliani said, according to Novikov's notes.

According to Novikov, Giuliani told the Ukrainians that Zelensky should "be careful" of the people surrounding him or he could find himself "in trouble."

Members of Zelensky's team contemplated giving Giuliani and Trump what they desired, and considered having Zelensky announce the investigations during a planned interview with CNN. Some advisers objected strongly to this, however, and the announcement was canceled.

"Can you imagine what would have been the reaction one second after that interview?" said Oleksandr Danyliuk, the former head of Zelensky's security council. "Zelensky would be looked upon as a toy, as a soft toy - not as a president. Nobody would have respected him."

Some Zelensky aides now say it was a mistake to open channels with Giuliani. But Ukraine's rebuff of the demands, said Novikov, was a victory in keeping the country out of U.S. affairs.

"Without our actions," he asserted, "the U.S. presidential race would have been very different."