#de-walled

[anarchistettin]

some birthday

just thought I'd paste in an article that's behind a paywall

By Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman

Reporting from Bedminster, N.J.

June 13, 2023

Donald J. Trump went to bed Tuesday night, on the eve of his 77th birthday, as a now twice-indicted former president and current front-runner for the Republican nomination for the White House in 2024.

“Some birthday,” Mr. Trump grumbled on Tuesday as he visited Versailles, a popular Cuban coffee shop in Miami. “Some birthday.”

He had just been arraigned on federal charges. His co-defendant was working as his valet. And he didn’t eat Cuban — he had McDonald’s. On his plane headed back to New Jersey from Miami, Mr. Trump ate the fast food while holding court with advisers and finishing edits on the speech he would soon deliver and mostly adhere to.

The surreal scene that awaited him at his private club in Bedminster, N.J., was a blend somewhere between a summer garden wedding and a political victory party. There was an air of an almost post-arraignment celebration as women arrived in their finery: fuchsia and canary yellow dresses, embroidered Trump wares and heels. Men sported suits and red MAGA hats.

Then Mr. Trump arrived. Visibly deflated after pleading not guilty for the second time in three months, his dry and low-energy resuscitation of his legal defense — even inflected with the usual references to Marxists, Communists and fascists — pleased his advisers but drew a relatively muted response from a crowd that had minutes earlier craned their phones for a shot of his motorcade.

He had entered to the same track — “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood — that he has used as an entrance theme so many times before. On Tuesday, the chorus landed differently.

New revelations. The 49-page indictment against Donald Trump and a personal aide, Walt Nauta, revealed a host of potentially devastating new details in the Justice Department’s inquiry into the former president’s mishandling of classified documents. Here are some of the most significant allegations:

There was a stunning pattern of obstruction. Prosecutors say Trump willfully ignored a May 2022 subpoena requiring him to return the documents — and took extraordinary steps to obstruct investigators. The indictment details how Nauta, at Trump’s direction, moved 64 boxes of documents so that Trump’s lawyer could not find them.

Boxes of documents were stored in a bathroom. In April 2021, Trump’s employees needed to move dozens of boxes from a ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago estate. “There is still a little room in the shower where his other stuff is,” one aide texted another. The boxes were hauled to a small bathroom and piled up nearly to the tiny chandelier next to the toilet.

Documents were stored sloppily. The indictment shows a picture of a box of top secret national security documents that in 2021 had spilled onto the floor of a Mar-a-Lago storage room accessible to many of the resort’s employees.

Trump made a “plucking motion.” The indictment recounts how Trump and his lawyer discussed what to do with a folder of 38 documents with classification markings. The lawyer said Trump made a “plucking motion” that implied, “why don’t you take them with you to your hotel room and if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out.”

Trump was recorded sharing secrets. The indictment says Trump was recorded at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., showing off secret U.S. battle plans to a writer. Trump described the material as “highly confidential” and “secret,” while admitting it had not been declassified.

Trump showed a secret map to a staff member. In August or September 2021, Trump shared a top secret military map with a staff member at his political action committee who did not have a security clearance; he warned the person not to “get too close.”

One of Trump’s lawyers is a key witness. Some of the most potentially damning evidence against the former president came from notes made by one of his lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran. The lawyer’s notes essentially gave prosecutors a road map to building their case.

“I did everything right,” Mr. Trump declared in his 30-minute speech, “and they indicted me.”

When he finished, he barely lingered to take in the applause. He gave an obligatory fist pump and mouthed thanks to the crowd. Then he turned and went inside.

All told, the day encapsulated the remarkable numbness to the extraordinary that has defined the Trump era. The former president entered federal court as a criminal defendant, and now faces hundreds of years in prison. The Republican front-runner’s early 2024 calendar now includes not only key caucuses and primaries but court dates. His rivals are at times contorting themselves while discussing his alleged crimes; one circulated a petition on Tuesday demanding they all promise to pardon him.

Mr. Trump’s appearance in a Miami courtroom was a humiliating moment for a New York businessman with a 40-year history of engaging in gamesmanship with prosecutors and regulators, viewing most every interaction as a transaction or something he could bluster his way through. By 2017, he had the armor of the presidency protecting him when the first special counsel investigating him, Robert S. Mueller III, began his work. And by 2021, as investigations began into his efforts to thwart the transfer of power, he had come to see another campaign as a shield against prosecutions.

But that grandeur — and legal insulation — had vanished on Tuesday. Instead, Mr. Trump’s team tried to create the sense of a man still in power. In Bedminster, he spoke with the white columns of the main house of his New Jersey golf club behind him. The indictment became another backdrop for the ongoing Trump Show.

He was comforted by a motley assortment of his most fervent supporters. They included former President Richard Nixon’s son-in-law; a former New York Police Department commissioner whom Mr. Trump pardoned in the final year of his presidency; and a former administration official whom Mr. Trump named as a representative to the National Archives.

It was the National Archives that began the winding road that ended with Mr. Trump facing charges alleging that he had defied a subpoena and kept highly classified documents. The agency, which is in charge of preserving presidential records, spent most of 2021 trying to compel Mr. Trump to return boxes of materials that he had taken with him when he left the White House. So did some of his lawyers and advisers. When he finally returned 15 boxes in January 2022, archives officials discovered nearly 200 individual classified documents, and alerted the Justice Department.

On Tuesday night in Bedminster, what amounted to a red-carpet MAGA crowd mingled to a carefree playlist of Trump-favored throwbacks: “Macho Man” by the Village People, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” by Frankie Valli, “We Will Rock You” by Queen, “Dancing Queen” by ABBA. Dozens of women wore matching red-white-and-blue outfits and chanted “We love Trump!” in unison as Mr. Trump was airborne.

The arraignment date happened to coincide with Mr. Trump’s first major fund-raiser, with those who had raised at least $100,000 invited to a “candlelight dinner” after his speech. The Trump campaign will be paying Mr. Trump’s private business in donor dollars for both events, a practice he has done for years.

Robert Jeffress, an evangelical pastor in Dallas and an early supporter who said he would not “abandon” Mr. Trump, got a call from a staffer for the former president on Monday, asking him to attend. He said Mr. Trump’s supporters saw the charges as “political.”

“I think they see this as Biden’s way of getting rid of his No. 1” opponent, he said, as music blared behind him.

Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, missed votes in Washington to be there to cheer for Mr. Trump.

The gathering in Bedminster and Mr. Trump’s not-quite impromptu cafe stop in Miami were reminiscent of how he handled the gravest political threat he faced in his first 2016 campaign: the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape. Back then, he immersed himself in a crowd of his supporters outside Trump Tower. Now, he did so both at his own property and in a friendly corner of a city where he will soon face trial.

“You see where the people are,” Mr. Trump said after he was serenaded with a brief rendition of “Happy Birthday” at the Cuban cafe, called Versailles, where he also stopped to pose for a picture with a mixed martial arts fighter.

He seemed determined to project nonchalance as much as defiance. His co-defendant and valet, Walt Nauta, continued to assist him throughout the day, even as the judge cautioned against the two men discussing the case, after traveling to court as part of Mr. Trump’s motorcade staff. Ever image-conscious, Mr. Trump had entered the courthouse in Miami out of the sightlines of cameras, and he avoided a mug shot and handcuffs for the second time.

The act of indicting him, Mr. Trump said, “will go down in infamy.” And he pledged to appoint a “real special prosecutor” once he’s president again to go after President Biden and his family.

“The seal is broken by what they’ve done,” he added.

[trashy-raccoonz]

my contribution to the kimharry nation (please ignore the crappy quality sweats)

[bloobydabloob]

Yellow bird up high in banana treeee

[lousolversons]

"You're not here, I'm just fucked in the head." Louis + Lestat in S02E01 of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE

[fudgecake-charlie]

to my IRL(s) who keeps sending me disco elysium memes despite the fact i haven't played it in months THIS IS BECAUSE OF YOU. HELP ME. If people have ideas on this AU feel free to have fun with it considering I. have only a few!

[danielsarmand]

Interview with the Vampire 2.02 · Do You Know What It Means to Be Loved by Death

[its-a-hare-pom-pom]

Silver and gold. Sun and moon. Black cat and golden retriever. Whatever, idk what it’s called but I want it

[wait-this-isnt-itunes]

iwtv + reductress headlines 2/?

[megaawkwardhuman]

paul simms:

[suddenly-frankenstein]

«still... Amadeo had a skill.»

[fangfuckers]

I am hoping they go full transgender with gabrielle’s story in the show. Anne Rice’s internal struggle with her gender is so *obviously* expressed through Gabrielle it drives me crazy! Gabrielle wears mens clothes and cuts her hair every night and when it grows back she's DISTRAUGHT. No matter what she does, her body will revert back to femme presenting and it DESTROYS her for a long time. She seeks SOLITUDE for decades upon decades after that. Gabrielle is so trans masc I'm honestly surprised it isn't more widespread, but that's prolly because we haven't seen her yet.

[rocketrouquine]

What are we putting on the wall now to replace the Francis Bacon ?

(…)

Ok let’s leave it bare for now… wait for revelation.

This is the wall in question. And the revelation, you guessed it.

They are insane.

[witchmd13]

back to being insane it haunts me that arthur doesn't recognize the de bois crest on tristan's shield when he comes back as a ghost. uther truly didn't allow him to learn even one thing about ygraine. he doesn't even know what his mother's family crest looks like.

[volivolition]

positive reinforcement

HELLO PLEASE PLEASE VOTE FOR VOLITION IN @skills-bracket-2!! 7 HOURS LEFT!! WE CAN STILL DO THIS!!!

[lupiclaws]

Quick doodle trying to update a really old artstyle of mine (with CN boys)

[criticalbeauregard]

i love all the campaigns but keyleth, vex, pike, kima and allura all being in a scene together really reminds me how much they are the blueprint and The Ladies Of All Time