Trump’s Legal Calendar Keeps Hitting Potholes

Edition · September 28, 2022

Trump’s Legal Calendar Keeps Hitting Potholes

A New York fraud case gets a boost for prosecutors, and Trump’s election-subversion orbit is busy telling a judge they were just following the rules. Not exactly the aura of control.

September 28, 2022 was another day when Trump-world tried to reframe bad facts as noble process and mostly succeeded only in reminding everyone why the mess exists in the first place. The New York fraud case kept moving forward, while the fake-elector crowd in Georgia argued in court that their bogus slate was really some kind of legally wholesome “contingent” backup plan. That’s a fancy term for paperwork written to help a loser look less like a loser. The result was another useful day for prosecutors, and another headache for Trump’s political brand.

Closing take

The pattern here is depressingly familiar: when Trump allies get pinned down, the explanation is never “we did the thing.” It is always “the thing was actually legal, historical, constitutional, theoretical, contingent, spiritual, or misunderstood by the fake-news goblins.” Courts and prosecutors were not buying much of that on this date, and that is the story.

Ranked by how bad the fuckup was

5 stars means maximum fallout. 1 star means a smaller self-own.

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Georgia Fake Electors Try The ‘Contingent’ Defense

Contingent electors Confidence 5/5

★★★★☆Fuckup rating 4/5 Serious fuckup

In court, lawyers for three Georgia Republicans who signed Trump’s false elector certificate tried to recast the whole scheme as a lawful backup plan. Prosecutors said the document was a fake intended to disrupt and delay the certification of Biden’s win, not some noble constitutional contingency. The defense argument was a reminder of how many Trump-world scandals eventually collapse into semantic gymnastics. It was also useful for investigators, because every attempt to launder the scheme through legal theory underscores how deliberate it was.

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Story

New York’s Fraud Case Keeps Closing In On Trump

Fraud case hangs Confidence 5/5

★★★★☆Fuckup rating 4/5 Serious fuckup

A New York judge has already let Attorney General Letitia James’ fraud case move ahead, and by September 28 the lawsuit was still hanging over Trump like a very expensive chandelier. The case alleges Trump and his company misrepresented asset values and net worth for years to get better deals from banks and insurers. On this date, the broader political damage was the story: the allegations had now become a standing, official legal threat instead of just another Trump grievance cycle. That matters because the complaint is not about one slip-up; it is about an alleged business model built on inflation, spin, and documents that said one thing while reality said another.

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