• pixxelkick@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Classic twisting of the thumb screws. The prisoners dilemma is functional of how trustworthy your co-conspirator is.

    And its safe to say when it comes to people who seriously would consider trying to overthrow an election for personal gain, you cant trust any of em, so of course everyone is gonna crack. 10/10 this will be fun to watch

    • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      Except they’ve been achieving the optimal prisoner’s dilemma outcome until now by protecting each other. Idk, I won’t believe he’ll flip until he does. For all I know, this is just a way to plead for Trump’s help for funding legal fees out in the open.

      • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I don’t think there are any funds.

        Wouldn’t that be marvelous if it turned out the RNC funding was one gigantic ponzi scheme and all the money was going to pay-off Trumps debts?

      • MsPenguinette@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s easy to stay in line while it’s working. The moment you are actually in court looking at years in prison, that’s when the dilemma really becomes tough to stick to.

        Also, in this scenario, there is no guarantee that everyone staying in line will mean they get away. Which makes the calculus much much more complicated as opposed to when it’s just trying to avoid an indictment all together

        • TechyDad@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Also, there’s an increased pressure to not be the first one to flip, but once someone flips, it’ll be a race to flip ASAP.

          If you’re the first one to flip, you’ll get attacked by MAGA folks. However, they’re less likely to attack the second or third flipper.

          Prosecutors will only take so many flips, though. What can the 10th person tell them that the first 9 haven’t? So if you’re waiting and someone flips, you want to flip early while prosecutors are still willing to make a deal.

          I think we’ll see one person flip and then a mad dash for others to flip. They night even wait for the expedited cases. If those go badly, the rest of the bunch will be flipping as fast as they can shout “give us a deal please!”

      • Ertebolle@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        It’s not really a Prisoner’s Dilemma when one prisoner doesn’t have the opportunity to flip, though - it’s not like if Trump agrees to testify against Meadows they’re going to reduce his sentence.

  • PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Meadows made clear in his own testimony at last week’s hearing that Trump viewed the false electors as a significant part of his strategy to remain in power. He said he sent an email pushing the campaign to assemble those slates because he feared a tongue-lashing from Trump.

    “What I didn’t want to happen was for the campaign to prevail in court action and not have this” lined up, he said.

    “Why?” prosecutor Anna Cross asked him.

    “Because I knew I’d be yelled at by the president of the United States,” he said.

    Yeah…great reason to try to upend democracy, Mark.

    • Octavio@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      At first I was mad at Mark Meadows for trying to destroy American democracy and rob me of my freedom, but, gosh if he faced the possibility of being yelled at, I guess he didn’t have any choice. So brave.

    • InLikeClint@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I’m so confused why anyone would be intimidated by traitor orange. The fuckin guy is a short fat turd who wears makeup and not in the cool way people wear makeup.

      • mateomaui@reddthat.com
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        1 year ago

        More accurate to say most are intimidated by drumpf’s base. Not getting votes after he is no longer an option, getting death threats, etc. No one is actually intimidated by him personally.

        Except for Mark Meadows, Chief Pussy.

    • Maeve@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I was thinking he has less guts and integrity than the average four year old sneaking cookies before dinner.

  • Ertebolle@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    The Nuremberg Defense probably works better if the person whose orders you claim to have been following is still alive and ranting on Twitter about how they damn well were his orders and he takes credit for the whole thing.

  • Thales@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Politico reported on Mark Meadows’ potential legal strategy as the White House chief of staff faces charges connected with Trump’s alleged conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. The report referred to court documents showing a strong likelihood that Meadows will join Trump’s other former allies who will blame the ex-president and portray him as the “primary driver” of the racketeering enterprise they’ve been accused of.

    Do it Mark, don’t go to jail for the orange buffoon.

  • Hairyblue@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I don’t see why all of them are not telling on Trump. Trump certainly doesn’t care about them and I believe if Trump could blame it all on them, he would.

    • tburkhol@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think some of them are deluded enough to think that it really is like an impeachment and any jury is going to be hopelessly deadlocked between its Democratic and Republican members. Or that the deep state will work its magic, retire all the prosecutors, and there will never even be trials.

      I mean, these are generally not smart people with firm grip on reality we’re talking about.

      • athos77@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Well, the Georgia legislature already has members trying to get rid of Fani Willis, and if they can stall them out that long, the federal cases will disappear under the next Republican president.

    • lazyslacker@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      When you’re coming off of a lifetime of anything being able to be smoothed over given enough money and power, it’s hard to imagine an alternative.

  • hoshikarakitaridia@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Yeah that’s kind of what I expected. The prosecution wants to pin down Trump, so they let a few conspirators flip to make that happen. The rest will get buried alongside Trump.

    It’s gonna be really interesting how trump will address/ spin this publicly. If it’s only one guy who flipped, he could probably just feed him to the wolves in the media, but this is gonna be a bunch of ppl turning on him. Idk if he can convince his followers to instantly switch to hating on them. There’s gonna be a bunch of ppl on the fence about trump who will take any evidence to hop off the bandwagon.

    Either way, having a public criminal trial while running a campaign is about as much of a PR disaster as it’s gonna get. Remember: the goal of the prosecution is to pin him down with every piece of damning evidence they can get, it’s gonna get dirty.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      He can turn his fans quite easily, I think.

      The bad scary deep-state government, run by Joe Brandon, threatened them with so much jail time that they had no choice but to turn on me. It makes sense. I don’t blame them. What else can you do?

      • TechyDad@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        My parents appear to be trying to move on, but without saying that Trump did anything wrong. For them, it’s basically just “let’s ignore all those crimes… Hey, did you hear about these great candidates Rick Scott or RFK, Jr?” (And, yes, my father did try to tell me how great those two are.)

        • deadtom@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I hope you said “Rick Scott, perpetrator of the largest Medicare fraud our nation has ever seen? You think HE is great? And RFK, a well documented Republican funded spoiler candidate they think will siphon democrat votes through wild nonsensical claims backed in no way by reality? This is a good candidate to you?”

        • Maeve@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          I don’t know how to respond. It’s not a great situation, but at least they’ve stopped vocally and/or actively supporting him. I’m sorry, congratulations? Seems weird to say but it’s honest.

  • randon31415@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    At this point, I don’t get really what is gained by flipping people against Trump. The argument isn’t that he did or didn’t do something. The argument is (in the minds of the jury at least) is what he did against the law. Yes, it might seem clear to us that it was, but to some Trump supporter on the jury having someone else say ‘Trump did a thing’, doesn’t change their mind that the thing he did and admits to doing is illegal.

    • drewofdoom@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Cooperation from co-conspirators is always helpful.

      Trump’s current strategy (or, at least what we can discern from his lawyers’ TV appearances) is to blame the lawyers he had at the time of the election. If all these co-conspirators point the finger directly at Trump, that goes a loooong way to proving that he was the ringleader. Not some lawyer. Not some aide. Trump called the shots.

      That’s what they want.

    • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Just imagine someone close to the whole situation turns against Trump as a witness.They could provide the extra juicy bits that would make impressing the jury much easier.