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With each new scandal involving Donald Trump, the question arises again: Is this the one that will finally exact some pain on the former president?

The question is in the air once more following the FBIs seizure of top-secret documents from Mar-a-Lago last week. On the one hand, as both Trumps allies and adversaries have noted, such a warrant on a former president is unprecedented, one of Trumps lawyers reportedly told the government all files were returned prior to the search, and Trump has offered nonsensical defenses, all of which point to the seriousness of the situation. On the other, many cases involving mishandled classified information end without chargesjust ask Hillary Clintonand some experts speculate that the goal of the search may simply have been to recover the documents rather than to build a criminal case against Trump.

But because this case is only the latest in a string of scandals, the question cant be separated from a broader context: Trumps repeated ability to escape the most serious, and sometimes any, consequences for his serial misbehavior. This skill has birthed memes, including a reappropriation of the Teflon Don moniker, well-deserved conservative mockery of premature political death warrants, and the immortal Ah! Well. Nevertheless tweet.

David A. Graham: Trumps scandals are never done

This pattern has created an air of invincibility around Trump that can drive liberals to nihilistic fatalism and conservatives to hubris. In truth, the dichotomy is misleading: Though Trump has evaded the most serious legal consequences so far, he has paid a political price; theres a reason hes the former president and very unpopular with the majority of Americans. Still, as we await more information on the Mar-a-Lago search, the record reveals the maneuvers that have gotten Trump out of jeopardy in the past.

Before the Presidency

The Scandal: Too many to summarize, as I chronicled in a running tally before he was elected president, including housing discrimination, a scammy university, and sexual-assault and -harassment allegations going back decades.

When: 19732017

How He Got Away With It: You name it, he tried it: connections, luck, running out the clock, endless litigation. But more than anything, a pattern emerged of Trump managing to sidestep serious legal consequences by paying fines to dispose of regulatory headaches, civil lawsuits, and other matters, frequently without having to admit guilt or submit to any other penalties. Many of the cases involved corners cut or laws bent to benefit his business, and the fines tended to represent a sliver of whatever revenue hed made by way of the infraction.

Russian Collusion

The Scandal: Although Trump, as well as many people who ought to know better, insists that the story was a hoax, his campaign colluded with Russian agents during the 2016 campaign, hoping for some edge against Hillary Clinton.

When: 2016

How He Got Away With It: First, Trump left the dirty work to lieutenants, skipping (for example) the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russian agents. Second, Trump critics overreached, becoming obsessed with sideshows, such as the Steele dossier or the campaign hanger-on Carter Page, that distracted from the core offense. Third, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was hobbled by a Justice Department policy against charging sitting presidents with crimes, and he seemed so determined to play his investigation by the book that he soft-pedaled the seriousness of his findings.

Extorting Ukraine

The Scandal: Using congressionally appropriated funds, Trump tried to blackmail Ukraine into assisting his reelection campaign by announcing an investigation into Joe Bidens son Hunter.

When: 201920

How He Got Away With It: The facts were relatively simple, and the House impeached Trump. But in a pattern that has been central to his enduring impunity, the majority-Republican Senate worked as a bloc to let him off, with only one GOP senator voting to find him guilty on one of two countsputting the vote well short of the 67 needed to convict.

Emoluments Clause

The Scandal: Critics argued that Trump violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution because his businesses allowed him to accept money from foreign governments. The Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., for example, became a magnet for overseas officials.

When: 201721

How He Got Away With It: Two cases were tied up in litigation until after Trump left office, at which point the Supreme Court ruled that they were moot. A federal appeals court rejected a third case, brought by Democratic members of Congress, who judges said didnt have standing to sue under the law. This has been one of Trumps essential insights: Just because a law exists doesnt mean it can be enforced.

Ethics Violations

The Scandal: Trump aides appear to have repeatedly violated the Hatch Act and other laws that prevent civil-service employees from engaging in politics or promoting Trump family businesses.

When: 201721

How He Got Away With It: In another demonstration that a laws existence doesnt guarantee that it matters, breaches of many ethics laws are identified by an independent office, but the person responsible for disciplining top appointees is the president. When Trumps aides got in trouble for breaking them for his benefit, he naturally made no effort to levy any punishments.

Questionable Tax Returns

The Scandal: Many questions have been raised about Trumps tax returns, including whether he has followed either the spirit or the letter of the law, going back to his refusal to release his returns as customary in 2016. What information has emerged to the public suggests that he has at the very least violated the former. The House Ways and Means Committee has requested his tax returns from the IRS under an existing statute.

When: 2016present

How He Got Away With It: Delay and stonewalling. The Trump Treasury Department put off a decision as long as possible, then announced that it would not produce the records. Since then, the matter has been tied up in litigation. The House committee still hasnt obtained the records, though it has repeatedly won court cases as it seeks the documentsmost recently last week. By now, of course, the matter is ancient and politically neutered.

Attempted Coup

The Scandal: Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election, pressuring state officials to rig vote totals, trying to engineer alternate slates of electors, and finally inciting a violent mob that disrupted Congresss certification of the count.

When: November 2020January 2021

How He Got Away With It: The House promptly impeached him a second time, but the GOP-led Senate insisted on delaying the trial. By the time it came around, some senators anger had cooled, theyd had a chance to test the political winds, and they decided that sticking with Trump was prudent. A majority of senators voted to convict, but the total was still short of the necessary 67.

That isnt the end of the story. The House committee investigating the maneuvers continues to turn up damaging information, which seems to have eroded his standing among Republican politicians and voters. The Justice Department is investigating and could potentially bring charges. A district attorney in Georgia is also investigating Trumps pressure campaign in that state. No one knows whether any of these will lead to charges or other material punishmentsbut Trump has plenty of battle-tested tactics to try to prevent that or fight them if they happen.

Original post:
The Donald J. Trump Guide to Getting Away With Anything - The Atlantic

Former President Donald Trump.AP

Tim O'Brien, a writer who wrote Trump Nation in 2005, said the Trump Org will go out of business.

The prediction comes after Trump's longtime CFO took a plea deal and admitted that the Trump Org dodged payroll taxes for 15 years.

"I think a lot of this is going to come to a head in the fall," O'Brien told MSNBC.

A biographer who chronicled former President Donald Trump's rise to fame in a 2005 book predicted that the Trump Organization will go out of business shortly.

Tim O'Brien, author of Trump Nation, said in a Friday interview with MSNBC that there are various signs of an impending collapse.

He said one of those signs is Trump's longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, taking a plea deal last week, per Newsweek.Weisselberg, as Insider's Laura Italiano reported, admitted that the Trump Organization, under his purview as a chief financial officer, dodged payroll taxes for 15 years.

Weisselberg will have to testify against the Trump Organization.

"Weisselberg, if he is found to have lied during that testimony, could face as much as 15 years in prison instead of a five-month sentence he will get otherwise," O'Brien said, according to Newsweek. "So he is going to be mightily incented to answer every question that the prosecutors asked him about a wide range of financial issues in the Trump Organization."

O'Brien noted that the result could be that the Trump Organization could "wind up" going "out of business."

"It is already in a very vulnerable position," he said, per Newsweek. "Donald Trump is in the worst business you can imagine during the COVID era: urban real estate, and essentially tourism and hotel businesses, and he's got a lot of debt against those businesses and he is personally going to need a substantial amount. He's also flailing possibly financially. I think a lot of this is going to come to a head in the fall."

Read the original article on Business Insider

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A writer who chronicled Donald Trump's rise to fame predicted that the Trump Org will be 'put out of business' - Yahoo News

The average blue-collar working American paid more taxes in 2016 than former president Donald Trump.

It is true. Remember how his opponents kept asking him to release his tax statements, and he would not?

Thats because,according to a 2020 New York Times article, he only paid$750in income tax that year, the year he was sworn into office as president.

The newspaper also discovered through the records they obtained that 10 out of 15 years, he paid nothing, using his multiple failed businesses and many loans to tap into loopholes for the rich.

Though the news is old, people are responding on Twitter like it aint sweet.

Any of the 87,000 New IRS agents have my permission to ensure Donald Trump pays more than $750 in Federal Tax.

WHAT? $750? Are you kidding me?!?! Im on disability and paid more than that!! This is why he didnt want his taxes released! He didnt pay any!! $750 is pocket change to him! RIDICULOUS!!!

Even Trumpers know that is CHEATING!

In 2019 I paid more in income taxes than Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos combined. You probably did too. Thats because Trump paid $750 and Bezos paid nothing. Something is wrong with this picture.

How do you feel about this?

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YOU PAID MORE THAN DONALD TRUMP IN TAXES: He Paid The IRS $750 In The Year 2017 - AllHipHop

Put two things together.

The first is the surge of Republican support for Donald Trump since the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago residence.

The second is this summers flow of good news for the Democrats as the 2022 midterms approach. Democratic candidates are leading in Senate races in Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. As Politico observes, all-party primaries in Washington State show Democratic candidates running well ahead of their performance in 2010 and 2014, the last big Republican years. Democratic standing is rising in generic polling. Across the nation, indications are gathering that Republicans could pay an immediate political price for the Supreme Courts overturning of Roe v. Wade. Above all, the August economic news has turned good: gasoline prices declining, general inflation abating, job growth surging.

The first factthe rallying to Trumpreminds us that his narrative of personal grievance still deeply moves Republican voters.

The second factthe Democrats improving congressional prospectsreminds us how little Trumps grievances resonate with the larger voting public. GOP leaders have made a lot of noise about the Democratic obsession with pronouns. But the Trump Republicans have a pronoun problem of their own: Trump demands, and they agree, to talk about me, me, me when the electorate has other, real, bread-and-butter concerns.

Big-money Republicans hoped that 2022 would be the year the GOP quietly sidelined Trump. Those hopes have been fading all year, as extreme and unstable pro-Trump candidates have triumphed in primary after primary. Their last best hope was that the reelection of Ron DeSantis as governor of Florida would painlessly shoulder Trump out of contention for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Now that hope, too, is dying.

DeSantis ran in 2018 as a craven Trump sycophant. He had four years to become his own man. He battled culture warseven turning against his former backers at Disneyall to prove himself the snarling alpha-male bully that Republican primary voters reward. But since the Mar-a-Lago search, DeSantis has dropped back into the beta-male role, sidekick and cheering section for Trump.

Trump has reasserted dominance. DeSantis has submitted. And if Republican presidential politics in the Trump era has one rule, its that theres no recovery from submission. Roll over once, and you cannot get back on your feet again.

Trump specializes in creating dominance-and-submission rituals. His Republican base is both the audience for them and the instrument of them. But to those outside the subculture excited by these rituals, they look demeaning and ridiculous. Everybody else wants jobs, homes, cheaper prescription drugs, and bridges that do not collapsenot public performances in Trumps theater of humiliation.

Midterm elections are usually referendums on the pressing issues of the day. Voters treat them, in effect, as their answer to the implied question: Got any complaints? And because voters usually do have complaints, the presidents party tends to take losses. But this time, the loudest complaints of the out party are becoming very far removed from most peoples lives.

Historically, conservatives spoke the language of stability; progressives, the language of change. This summer, however, the Trump Republicans are speaking the language of confrontation, of threat, of violence. Five days ago, Peter Wehner described here at The Atlantic the angry shouts on right-wing message boards and websites. That language of menace is now being used by the former president himself. Allow me impunity or else face more armed violence from my supporters is the implicit Trump warning.

Thats a hell of a message to carry into a midterm election. And its a message that is incidentally amending the 2022 ballot question from Got any complaints? to How do you react to bullies making threats?

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Trump Is Back on the Ballot - The Atlantic

There are dozens of outstanding questions about Donald Trump's bizarre decision to abscond with boxes of unauthorized and classified documents when he left the White House and we don't have any idea why he refused to return many of them when the National Archives and the FBI asked for them back. All we do know is that the FBI was forced to issue a subpoena, which Trump defied, and finally had to get a search warrant to retrieve the documents.

The speculation about his motives run from the former president just wanting to take classified material as a souvenirto show offto his friendsor sell as memorabiliato possible blackmail offoreign leaders.(Apparently, presidents get highly classified intelligence on allies and adversaries alike.) The most alarming reporting suggested that the documents contained nuclear secrets. This seemed unlikely untilthis pieceby Josh Kovensky at Talking Points Memo reminded me that Trump has a "special interest" in nuclear weapons, believing himself to be an expert because his uncle taught at MIT. Now it doesn't seem so outlandish. Trump was bragging in his final year that the U.S. had developed some secret new nuclear program at his direction which he couldn't reveal. So, who knows? He may have actually stolen something truly dangerous.

It remains to be seen if the law will catch up to Trump this time. It's coming down on him from several directions but according to news reports Trump is thrilled about the whole thing because it's raising lots of money and it has his supporters up in arms and fired up to fight for him. It also has him at the forefront of the political news which always makes Trump happy.According to NBC News, it's all made him rethink his need to announce his presidential campaign before the midterm elections. As of now, he remains inclined to wait.

The biggest reason for celebration in Trumpworld no doubt is the fact that the search has necessitated that his would-be rivals all back off their plans to challenge him, at least for the moment. Once Trump activated the MAGA cult they had little choice, proving once again that Trump still has a stranglehold on the GOP. Everyone from former vice president Mike Pence to South DakotaGov. Kristi NoemandVirginia Gov. Glenn Younkinissued shrill denunciations of the FBI after the documents were siezed.

Trump's top rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who, in another political world would have jumped on the news to condemn Trump as damaged goods, immediatelywent to bat for himcalling the FBI search "another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the regime's political opponents." (If anyone knows about weaponizing agencies against enemies, it's Ron DeSantis.)Polls showedthat Trump got a 10 point bounce over DeSantis with GOP primary voters after the FBI search.

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The pressure to back up the Dear Leader is so intense that notorious podcaster Alex Jones, clearly out of the loop, rapidly backed down from his ill-timed endorsement of DeSantis over Trump:

It's easy to see why Trump is feeling relieved. Over the summer it appeared that his followers were getting restive and his potential opponents were starting to make their moves. The Mar-a-Lago "raid" changed that dynamic.

Democracy is on the ballot and that's not good news for Donald Trump.

Others, however, aren't so sure this is the big winner Trump thinks it is. One worried friend ofTrumptold NBC:

"He may get closer to the prize but in reality, he's slipping...It seems like the net is surrounding him more and more, and his ability to dance around these things is going to get more challenging," this ally said. "It's a double-edged sword."

That net is not just the legal problems. Trump believes that it's always better when he's in the news, no matter what the reason, but he never seems to understand that while he may thrill his following, he also motivates the opposition.A new pollreleased this past weekend shows that the GOP is facing some unexpected headwinds going into the fall election largely because of the January 6 hearings:

It's certainly possible that the numbers include some Republicans who see the Big Lie about the 2020 election as a "threat to democracy" but the changes in enthusiasm argue that this is primarily attributable to Democrats:

According to the survey, 68% of Republicans express a high level of interest in the upcoming election registering either a "9" or "10" on a 10-point scale versus 66% for Democrats.

That 2-point GOP advantage is down from 17 points in March and 8 points in May.

The pollsters consider that to be the result of the Supreme Court'sdecision to overrule the landmark Roe v. Wade decisionin June. But since abortion shows up as the top issue for only 8% of respondents, it's clear that it's not the only reason for the surge in interest. "Threats to democracy" coming in as the most important issue isthe big change.Democracy is on the ballot and that's not good news for Donald Trump.

Just as important, with all the "fundamentals" about the economy, President Biden's approval rating etc., Trump's constant attention-grabbing, his legal troubles, his rallies, his endorsements, the drumbeat of Trump, Trump, Trump, has turned the midterm election from a standard referendum on the president to a choice between the undisputed leader of the Republican Party and the leader of the Democratic Party. And while it's true that Biden's popularity numbers are low, Trump's are even worse:

As I've said before, Trump is the gift that keeps on giving for Democrats. If he'd kept a low profile, cooperated with the FBI and shut his mouth, this election might have been the cakewalk they all expected it to be. But with the hearings andDobbsand Trump endorsing a crop of fascist weirdos, it looks like it's going to be a real race. If Democrats actually save their majority this fall they should send Trump a case of Diet Coke and a very nice thank-you card.

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"A double-edged sword: Trump's thrilled to be back in the spotlight but is it already backfiring? - Salon