JR, I think your opening line needs qualification. Mike's comment makes perfect sense, as does yours, which opposes Mike's conclusion. This is exactly why many (if not most) conspiracy theories work. The heart of any conspiracy theory is, "Here is the truth, which makes perfect sense. However, there is no evidence for this truth, because…
JR, I think your opening line needs qualification. Mike's comment makes perfect sense, as does yours, which opposes Mike's conclusion. This is exactly why many (if not most) conspiracy theories work. The heart of any conspiracy theory is, "Here is the truth, which makes perfect sense. However, there is no evidence for this truth, because it has been deliberately concealed. And there is no evidence for the concealment, because the people who concealed it were good at their job."
Or the evidence is inherently unknowable. For instance, you state, "The last thing the new DA wants to do is drop the case against Trump." You have no evidence for that statement, and even if you knew the new DA personally, you could have no evidence, because he could be lying to you. You are talking about how another person ranks internal motivations. Hardly anyone living has an especially clear notion of their OWN ranking of motivations, much less someone else's.
One rule used in science is Occam's Razor, which gives preference to simplicity. That works reasonably well with "inanimate" reality, because we assume electrons and gasses don't have "motivations" at all. Move it up to the level of "animate" reality, even at the level of microbes, and you suddenly get "motivations." How, exactly, does a yeast colony work? Certainly not like an ideal gas.
I've dismissed a lot of "hearsay" about Trump and Putin that is, right now, starting to look a WHOLE lot more probable. For instance, John Bolton has said that Putin held off on his invasion of Ukraine because he expected Trump to withdraw the US from NATO in his second term. In 2017, this would have sounded like a completely wild conspiracy theory. In 2022, it makes perfect sense. Is there evidence beyond Bolton's statement? ::shrug:: Time will tell.
Sorry Joe, not buying it. The reason it makes no sense for the DA to kill this case is that doing so likely ends his political career. He is an elected official, in a post that most pursue as a stepping stone to higher, state-wide office. Said DA is being pilloried today by commenters here, in the NYT and elsewhere. Most accuse him of taking bribes or being a secret Trump enabler. All promise to never vote for him again. Others call him a coward. His political career is over. The cowardly, low-risk thing to do for the DA would have been to issue an indictment he didn’t believe in and go to trial. If Trump was declared not guilty, the blame would go to Cyrus Vance, or the 2 career lawyers. The DA could say, “I just got here, I was following their advice”. Or he could blame the judge, or the jury.
Meanwhile, Mike’s saying the case was dropped because of bribes by mythical (Russian or otherwise) billionaires or fear of children being assassinated by Russian oligarchs. You know, logical stuff.
Mike, that’s the silliest conjecture I’ve heard here so far (which is saying something). How about, “Let’s say that Danaerys Targaryan threatened to fry the DA with dragon fire unless he dropped the case.” You’re just making stuff up. We have to be better than the MAGA crowd. No baseless conspiracies, stick to facts.
“I am proposing hypthoses (sic) consistent with surrounding situation yes.” No, you’re not. There’s nothing “consistent” with implying that Alvin Bragg took a $45 million bribe and deposited it in a secret Swiss bank account. You're polluting this board with BS. Please “waste time in review” in the future so you don’t waste our time with ridiculous comments.
“Bragg, a Democrat, earned his A.B. from Harvard University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, clerked for Hon. Robert P. Patterson, Jr. in the Southern District of New York, and was a Visiting Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Racial Justice Project at New York Law School. Alvin is a former member of the Board of Directors of the New York Urban League and a Sunday School teacher at his church…. In 2017, Eric Schneiderman, then serving as attorney general, appointed Bragg Chief Deputy Attorney General of New York. Bragg ran the criminal justice and social justice divisions, overseeing lawsuits brought by the state against the Donald J. Trump Foundation, Harvey Weinstein and The Weinstein Company, and the addition of a citizenship question on the 2020 United States Census. He left the position in December 2018 and became a professor at the New York Law School, where he was co-director of the Racial Justice Project. Bragg is a member of the board of directors for the Legal Aid Society. He has represented the families of Ramarley Graham and Eric Garner in civil litigation against New York City.”
Does he sound like a Trumpite? Can we not resort to ridiculous conjecture?
I know nothing about Bragg, and have been dragged backward into defending hypotheses about the man. No.
My objection is to using dismissive words, like "ridiculous" or "makes no sense" when they are not merited.
A "ridiculous" argument is something like, "To save the village, we had to destroy the village," or "Putin's war on Ukraine flows from Putin's deep empathy for the people of Ukraine." THAT makes no sense.
What you are saying here is, "I know things that you apparently do not, and your theory does not fit the facts as I know them." That is VERY different from "ridiculous."
We are living in a time when the former President of the United States was (and still is) a compulsive, manipulative liar, a narcissist who does nothing -- NOTHING -- without expectation of personal gain, who has plausibly committed seditious conspiracy against the government of the US; where at least half of the Senate is in complete thrall to this man; where somewhere between 20% and 50% of the population is in thrall to this man; where corruption is so endemic to our politics, with gerrymandering and redistricting and voter suppression and propaganda, that we cannot fully trust the outcome of our elections.
We are living in a time where John Eastman, an attorney and legal professor with many of the same qualifications you post above, offered up a bogus legal theory to the President to feed said President's paranoia and narcissism, resulting in an attempted coup on the government. That "honorable man" may now be liable for charges of seditious conspiracy.
Sad as it is to say, NO hypothesis that impugns the integrity of any public figure is "ridiculous." It may be "improbable based on the evidence."
It sounds like Bragg has a pretty good pedigree. Thank you for that information. There is still the question of why he stopped the process, and I've seen nothing here but speculation.
“There is still the question of why he stopped the process, and I've seen nothing here but speculation.” Then you haven’t been reading very closely. Bragg didn’t stop the process. He told the 2 lead attorneys that he was not ready to issue an indictment now because they did not have enough evidence. Many here (including me) have cited news stories explaining what this evidence would be in more detail. The 2 lead attorneys resigned, which may end up stopping the process.
So why did the two leads resign? One, sure: maybe he didn't like the new boss's aftershave. But both?
Clearly they had SOME kind of beef with Bragg, that they didn't have with Vance.
Pretty big beef. They both walked out. Like something big changed. Otherwise, It just don't add up.
Any idea what that might have been? (patting pockets)
Specifically, why did they wait for Vance to leave, if they thought they were not moving forward? They could have bailed under Vance. If they were just pushing a pencil waiting for Vance to leave, then Bragg's statement that they needed "more evidence" would have let them off the hook; no need to resign. If they were both earnestly pursuing a rainbow unicorn under Vance, how is it that Vance and two top attorneys failed to notice that unicorns don't exist until Bragg showed up and told them?
It points to a pretty clear "difference of legal opinion" about what was "enough" at the very least, not just between Bragg and the two leads, but between Bragg and Vance.
Yeah, sure. The new boss wouldn’t support an indictment. After 5 years of their work. The old boss wouldn’t either, after 4 1/2 years of work. If they had a case after 3 years, or after 4 years, Vance could have indicted Trump. He didn’t, which says a lot. Instead he punted it to the new guy. The 2 attorneys quit because they had 5 years invested in the case and it’s hard to admit they fell short. That doesn’t mean the new guy was wrong that their case wasn’t strong enough. What is it about this that you don’t get? Those 2 attorneys worked 5 years to nail Trump. They didn’t pull it off, because it’s impossible to get hard evidence on a shyster like Trump. Doesn’t the fact that they were still trying after 5 years indicate that? How many more years did they need?
Maybe there are some things I don't understand about how the DOJ works, as distinct from ordinary corporate environments. I've worked for years on tech projects, and had them outright canceled over a weekend: the company didn't want to pour any more money into it. Often, it's accompanied by layoffs. If you are retained, and you're unhappy with the inevitable reorg, you start interviewing (quietly) elsewhere, and when you get an offer you like, THEN you let your boss know, "So sorry, but there's an opportunity I can't pass up. It's been a pleasure." Even if the job was really a death march through hell that ended in stupidity and catastrophe, you smile and move on with protestations of good will.
The usual reason a group quits on the spot after a reorg is a bitter argument with the new boss, or with the new corporate direction, or both.
You say Mike's comment makes 'perfect sense'. Can you present an argument for that Joseph that will not take up more that two legal size pages and make sense as well?
Two lead attorneys spend five years building a difficult case, with support of their boss, and are coming to the end of the process, and suddenly, they have a new boss who quashes the investigation. They quit. Those are the basic facts, right? The question is, why?
Two hypotheses are obvious, amid others.
1) Michael's hypothesis is that the new boss is a shill who shut down the investigation for corrupt motives, and the attorneys quit in disgust.
2) JR's hypothesis is that the new boss is clearer-eyed than the old boss, concluded that the case could not succeed, and decided to shut down the investigation as a waste of time and resources. The attorneys quit in disgust.
A third variant suggests itself.
3) The new boss, taking over, started asking some hard questions of the two attorneys, the attorneys did not have good answers and, "not feeling appropriately supported" by their new boss, threatened to walk out. The boss, angry at being railroaded by his subordinates and concerned by the lack of good answers, decides to call their bluff and shut down the project, after which the attorneys quit.
All three of these hypotheses, in the absence of evidence, make perfect sense. I've seen all three scenarios play out in corporate environments over much lower-stakes conflicts.
Fern is correct; it`s called an "Opening Argument" which must resonate with a Jury & be supported by copious amounts of admissible evidence. Note, jurors have done their own property evaluations.
Jury questionnaies, jury selection & necessary disqualifications are Trial skills. Sidebars with prospective jurors saves a lot of the limited number of DQ's.
JR, I think your opening line needs qualification. Mike's comment makes perfect sense, as does yours, which opposes Mike's conclusion. This is exactly why many (if not most) conspiracy theories work. The heart of any conspiracy theory is, "Here is the truth, which makes perfect sense. However, there is no evidence for this truth, because it has been deliberately concealed. And there is no evidence for the concealment, because the people who concealed it were good at their job."
Or the evidence is inherently unknowable. For instance, you state, "The last thing the new DA wants to do is drop the case against Trump." You have no evidence for that statement, and even if you knew the new DA personally, you could have no evidence, because he could be lying to you. You are talking about how another person ranks internal motivations. Hardly anyone living has an especially clear notion of their OWN ranking of motivations, much less someone else's.
One rule used in science is Occam's Razor, which gives preference to simplicity. That works reasonably well with "inanimate" reality, because we assume electrons and gasses don't have "motivations" at all. Move it up to the level of "animate" reality, even at the level of microbes, and you suddenly get "motivations." How, exactly, does a yeast colony work? Certainly not like an ideal gas.
I've dismissed a lot of "hearsay" about Trump and Putin that is, right now, starting to look a WHOLE lot more probable. For instance, John Bolton has said that Putin held off on his invasion of Ukraine because he expected Trump to withdraw the US from NATO in his second term. In 2017, this would have sounded like a completely wild conspiracy theory. In 2022, it makes perfect sense. Is there evidence beyond Bolton's statement? ::shrug:: Time will tell.
Sorry Joe, not buying it. The reason it makes no sense for the DA to kill this case is that doing so likely ends his political career. He is an elected official, in a post that most pursue as a stepping stone to higher, state-wide office. Said DA is being pilloried today by commenters here, in the NYT and elsewhere. Most accuse him of taking bribes or being a secret Trump enabler. All promise to never vote for him again. Others call him a coward. His political career is over. The cowardly, low-risk thing to do for the DA would have been to issue an indictment he didn’t believe in and go to trial. If Trump was declared not guilty, the blame would go to Cyrus Vance, or the 2 career lawyers. The DA could say, “I just got here, I was following their advice”. Or he could blame the judge, or the jury.
Meanwhile, Mike’s saying the case was dropped because of bribes by mythical (Russian or otherwise) billionaires or fear of children being assassinated by Russian oligarchs. You know, logical stuff.
JR. Let's say you were a DA but were offered $45 million to kill the case.
Would you worry much about re-election after the deposit was made in the Swiss Bank account??
:-)
I think not my friend.
Mike, that’s the silliest conjecture I’ve heard here so far (which is saying something). How about, “Let’s say that Danaerys Targaryan threatened to fry the DA with dragon fire unless he dropped the case.” You’re just making stuff up. We have to be better than the MAGA crowd. No baseless conspiracies, stick to facts.
JR. I am proposing hypotheses consistent with surrounding situation yes.
But, as I pointed out to Fern.
This is not the "Jouranal of Electronic Engineering" this is an board that requires no submission or review to post to.
So, I post my perspective. It is TOTALLY OK with me if you or Fern do not share that perspective (for any reason at all).
But, this board is so good because we don't have to waste a bunch of time in review.
“I am proposing hypthoses (sic) consistent with surrounding situation yes.” No, you’re not. There’s nothing “consistent” with implying that Alvin Bragg took a $45 million bribe and deposited it in a secret Swiss bank account. You're polluting this board with BS. Please “waste time in review” in the future so you don’t waste our time with ridiculous comments.
JR. Of course, you are welcome to skip anything I write so as not to pollute your mind.
right?
That's a good argument, given that this is a New York DA. OTOH, if he's a Trumpite....
A Trumpite? Do you know anything about the man?
“Bragg, a Democrat, earned his A.B. from Harvard University, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, clerked for Hon. Robert P. Patterson, Jr. in the Southern District of New York, and was a Visiting Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Racial Justice Project at New York Law School. Alvin is a former member of the Board of Directors of the New York Urban League and a Sunday School teacher at his church…. In 2017, Eric Schneiderman, then serving as attorney general, appointed Bragg Chief Deputy Attorney General of New York. Bragg ran the criminal justice and social justice divisions, overseeing lawsuits brought by the state against the Donald J. Trump Foundation, Harvey Weinstein and The Weinstein Company, and the addition of a citizenship question on the 2020 United States Census. He left the position in December 2018 and became a professor at the New York Law School, where he was co-director of the Racial Justice Project. Bragg is a member of the board of directors for the Legal Aid Society. He has represented the families of Ramarley Graham and Eric Garner in civil litigation against New York City.”
Does he sound like a Trumpite? Can we not resort to ridiculous conjecture?
Sigh.
I know nothing about Bragg, and have been dragged backward into defending hypotheses about the man. No.
My objection is to using dismissive words, like "ridiculous" or "makes no sense" when they are not merited.
A "ridiculous" argument is something like, "To save the village, we had to destroy the village," or "Putin's war on Ukraine flows from Putin's deep empathy for the people of Ukraine." THAT makes no sense.
What you are saying here is, "I know things that you apparently do not, and your theory does not fit the facts as I know them." That is VERY different from "ridiculous."
We are living in a time when the former President of the United States was (and still is) a compulsive, manipulative liar, a narcissist who does nothing -- NOTHING -- without expectation of personal gain, who has plausibly committed seditious conspiracy against the government of the US; where at least half of the Senate is in complete thrall to this man; where somewhere between 20% and 50% of the population is in thrall to this man; where corruption is so endemic to our politics, with gerrymandering and redistricting and voter suppression and propaganda, that we cannot fully trust the outcome of our elections.
We are living in a time where John Eastman, an attorney and legal professor with many of the same qualifications you post above, offered up a bogus legal theory to the President to feed said President's paranoia and narcissism, resulting in an attempted coup on the government. That "honorable man" may now be liable for charges of seditious conspiracy.
Sad as it is to say, NO hypothesis that impugns the integrity of any public figure is "ridiculous." It may be "improbable based on the evidence."
It sounds like Bragg has a pretty good pedigree. Thank you for that information. There is still the question of why he stopped the process, and I've seen nothing here but speculation.
So well said, Joseph!
“There is still the question of why he stopped the process, and I've seen nothing here but speculation.” Then you haven’t been reading very closely. Bragg didn’t stop the process. He told the 2 lead attorneys that he was not ready to issue an indictment now because they did not have enough evidence. Many here (including me) have cited news stories explaining what this evidence would be in more detail. The 2 lead attorneys resigned, which may end up stopping the process.
Good Lord, I feel like Columbo. (patting pockets)
So why did the two leads resign? One, sure: maybe he didn't like the new boss's aftershave. But both?
Clearly they had SOME kind of beef with Bragg, that they didn't have with Vance.
Pretty big beef. They both walked out. Like something big changed. Otherwise, It just don't add up.
Any idea what that might have been? (patting pockets)
Specifically, why did they wait for Vance to leave, if they thought they were not moving forward? They could have bailed under Vance. If they were just pushing a pencil waiting for Vance to leave, then Bragg's statement that they needed "more evidence" would have let them off the hook; no need to resign. If they were both earnestly pursuing a rainbow unicorn under Vance, how is it that Vance and two top attorneys failed to notice that unicorns don't exist until Bragg showed up and told them?
It points to a pretty clear "difference of legal opinion" about what was "enough" at the very least, not just between Bragg and the two leads, but between Bragg and Vance.
Or that something else changed.
Preet Bharara said back in July of 2021 that there probably wasn’t a case against Trump, when Cyrus Vance indicted Trump’s accountant but not Trump himself. https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/562537-why-trump-probably-wont-be-indicted
Bharara repeated on 3/1 that it’s likely there’s not a strong enough case in his podcast. https://tunein.com/podcasts/News--Politics-Podcasts/Stay-Tuned-with-Preet-p1018528/?topicId=170223885
“There’s no slam-dunk case without a cooperating witness”, Preet Bharara.
Yeah, sure. The new boss wouldn’t support an indictment. After 5 years of their work. The old boss wouldn’t either, after 4 1/2 years of work. If they had a case after 3 years, or after 4 years, Vance could have indicted Trump. He didn’t, which says a lot. Instead he punted it to the new guy. The 2 attorneys quit because they had 5 years invested in the case and it’s hard to admit they fell short. That doesn’t mean the new guy was wrong that their case wasn’t strong enough. What is it about this that you don’t get? Those 2 attorneys worked 5 years to nail Trump. They didn’t pull it off, because it’s impossible to get hard evidence on a shyster like Trump. Doesn’t the fact that they were still trying after 5 years indicate that? How many more years did they need?
Maybe there are some things I don't understand about how the DOJ works, as distinct from ordinary corporate environments. I've worked for years on tech projects, and had them outright canceled over a weekend: the company didn't want to pour any more money into it. Often, it's accompanied by layoffs. If you are retained, and you're unhappy with the inevitable reorg, you start interviewing (quietly) elsewhere, and when you get an offer you like, THEN you let your boss know, "So sorry, but there's an opportunity I can't pass up. It's been a pleasure." Even if the job was really a death march through hell that ended in stupidity and catastrophe, you smile and move on with protestations of good will.
The usual reason a group quits on the spot after a reorg is a bitter argument with the new boss, or with the new corporate direction, or both.
Thank you for that clarification! :-)
Joseph. I upgraded to BEST POST OF THE DAY.
:-)
I've heard "Trumpite" used to refer to the Trump cultists.
You say Mike's comment makes 'perfect sense'. Can you present an argument for that Joseph that will not take up more that two legal size pages and make sense as well?
It seems pretty obvious to me.
Two lead attorneys spend five years building a difficult case, with support of their boss, and are coming to the end of the process, and suddenly, they have a new boss who quashes the investigation. They quit. Those are the basic facts, right? The question is, why?
Two hypotheses are obvious, amid others.
1) Michael's hypothesis is that the new boss is a shill who shut down the investigation for corrupt motives, and the attorneys quit in disgust.
2) JR's hypothesis is that the new boss is clearer-eyed than the old boss, concluded that the case could not succeed, and decided to shut down the investigation as a waste of time and resources. The attorneys quit in disgust.
A third variant suggests itself.
3) The new boss, taking over, started asking some hard questions of the two attorneys, the attorneys did not have good answers and, "not feeling appropriately supported" by their new boss, threatened to walk out. The boss, angry at being railroaded by his subordinates and concerned by the lack of good answers, decides to call their bluff and shut down the project, after which the attorneys quit.
All three of these hypotheses, in the absence of evidence, make perfect sense. I've seen all three scenarios play out in corporate environments over much lower-stakes conflicts.
Does that clarify?
Joseph.
Yes, Why would the new DA interrupt the grand jury process EVEN if he had a perception different from the people who spent FIVE years on it.
Let it play out like all the rest of them do. If the grand jury produces no indictments, well, there you have it.
BUT WE WILL NEVER KNOW now will we.?
Much time and many suppositions would have been unnecessary had you read the article in question. See the link below.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/05/nyregion/trump-investigation-manhattan-da-alvin-bragg.html?searchResultPosition=1
Fern, in a separate post I point out flaws in the NY Times article.
True statement. It's behind a paywall I'm not paying for.
"Makes no sense" is (in my mind) quite distinct from "is not supported by the evidence."
Fern is correct; it`s called an "Opening Argument" which must resonate with a Jury & be supported by copious amounts of admissible evidence. Note, jurors have done their own property evaluations.
Bryan, Thank you for the amicus brief. Can I take you with me?
Jury questionnaies, jury selection & necessary disqualifications are Trial skills. Sidebars with prospective jurors saves a lot of the limited number of DQ's.
Oh, those Sidebars are intoxicating.
Joseph,
Makes perfect sense. I am sure if Trump wins, he will remove us from NATO.
Tucker Carlson will tell Americans what to think about that, and, they will think what Tucker Carlson wants them to think.