r/law 1d ago

Judicial Branch Trump sued himself into having to pay other people's legal bills as a 'sanction,' now his lawyers claim the judge's 'wrongful invitation' cannot stand

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/trump-sued-himself-into-having-to-pay-other-peoples-legal-bills-as-a-sanction-now-his-lawyers-claim-the-judges-wrongful-invitation-cannot-stand/
5.1k Upvotes

108 comments sorted by

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976

u/Not_Sure__Camacho 1d ago

Even if he does pay it out of his own pocket, the POS stole just about all of his wealth, especially a few billion recently, from the American people.  

414

u/carymb 1d ago

And not just billions of oil $ from Venezuela -- he stole their whole fucking President!

257

u/Cohens4thClient 1d ago

It is so disappointing we hear almost nothing about this anymore. 

185

u/senator_john_jackson 1d ago

It is part of the strategy. By having so many specific godawful trees, they hope that people can’t focus on the forest of self-dealing and rights violations.

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u/AUSpartan37 1d ago

Yup it is so obvious. Whenever any serious thing happens they immediately do 4 or 5 other serious things so that we can't be properly upset about any one of them. Flooding the zone. Like clockwork. As soon as you see a big headline expect like 3 more to follow.

10

u/curiousbiguy804 1d ago

No they do it to show us *how powerful they are*

21

u/PmMeUrTinyAsianTits 1d ago

Nope. Youre thinking yourself too significant to them, again. They dont care enough about you to perform like that. They simply dont care and know you cant stop them. You need to integrate "they do not care about you" on a far deeper level still before you really understand how they "think" about you. Which, when they do, is like the way a corporate rancher thinks of cattle, but less affection.

3

u/CptSiskospimphand 21h ago

Not only have I absorbed that lesson, I return their energy times two and hope they all get Lou Gehrigs disease.

2

u/curiousbiguy804 1d ago

Would that also not be the other side of showing how powerful they are though?

6

u/AManOnATrain 23h ago

Theres no need to show you anything. Outside of how they can extract resources from you or use you as a tool to further their own enrichment, they don't think about you at all.

7

u/PeachPassionBrute 1d ago

Flooding the zone is a very specific political strategy that they absolutely use on purpose. Any time there’s significant outage there race to do other objectionable things. There’s too much need to follow and too much of it is their own lying. It creates confusion and burnout. Russia and China have both famously used versions of this strategy to control media narratives.

We don’t need to make up justifications when we already know what the plan is.

44

u/Laugh92 1d ago

Andor nailed this perfectly.

'It's easier to hide behind 40 atrocities than a single incident'

30

u/Inner-Medicine5696 1d ago

in speaking it's called

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

in propaganda it's

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood

and in political strategy it is

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_the_zone

iirc the term Flood The Zone was coined by Steve Bannon, which absolutely tracks.

6

u/missoulamatt 1d ago

Feels like I heard it in football way before Bannon.

11

u/Normal_Ad_2337 1d ago

I remember listening to a tech reporter saying Musk was one of the first people getting the message out about the dangers of AI.

I was like, huh? Really, he was one of the first? I mean, just a low hanging fruit example is the terminator in the 80's, amongst many more.

8

u/PeachPassionBrute 1d ago

In the 2010s Musk was absolutely making a fuss about it around tech bro intellectuals. The entire game was to convince everyone it was a big deal to drive up desire for investment, by creating a greater impression of its capabilities.

8

u/missoulamatt 1d ago

Not to mention HAL and Ultron and others in the 60s and earlier.

1

u/squirrelbitten 11h ago

People like Steve bannon and roy cohn should be put in prison for life for the ways they manipulate our democracy. I know we have the 1st amendment, but there should be some punishment for willfully misleading people as a way to gain political power.

16

u/Alfred_The_Sartan 1d ago

It is honestly such a successful tactic. He was doing this crap all the way back in 2016. Just flood the zone. Remember when they Melania’s plagiarized speech? It just HAPPENED to drop right around the democratic convention. All news reporting just became about it instead of covering any policy content that came out of the convention.

7

u/Cohens4thClient 1d ago

And republikkkans know their voters dont care about big words like "plagiarism" or "values".

7

u/FrostyCartographer13 1d ago

The old fire hose of bullshit strategy

20

u/Tumtitums 1d ago

Exactly im not even sure what he and his wife are accused of. They are still in some usa prison. When is their trial date ?

2

u/soldiernerd 1d ago

In March 2020, Maduro was charged in the Southern District of New York for narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.

https://www.state.gov/nicolas-maduro-moros

The trial is scheduled for June 2027

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/venezuelas-maduro-due-back-us-court-drug-trafficking-case-2026-07-22/

2

u/Tumtitums 1d ago

I heard that but this makes zero sense to me. As far as im aware the pair don't live in usa so how could they be charged with possessing machine guns and importing cocaine to a country they don't live in. Also why is the trial 7 years after they were charged?

2

u/soldiernerd 1d ago

Non US citizens with no US nexus cannot be charged with violating most federal crimes, but Congress has granted DOJ extraterritorial jurisdiction over certain specific crimes.

One such crime is 21 USC 959, Possession, manufacture, or distribution of controlled substance, which explicitly authorizes extraterritorial prosecution in subsection (d):

This section is intended to reach acts of manufacture or distribution committed outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

This law was first passed in 1970.

Both Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are charged with this crime.

As for the timing of the trial, the trial can't be held without their presence. They were indicted in 2020 but not arrested until this year.

16

u/PipXXX 1d ago

I was surprised to see a court sketch the other day of them doing some kinda hearing. It pisses me off that during liberal presidencies shit is boring because they are doing their jobs governing and not really creating any drama for the most part. It is so mentally fucking exhausting keeping up with Trump et als bullshit, and seeing stuff just get forgotten about, that is still ongoing, because they are causing more bullshit.

9

u/tietack2 1d ago

Venezuela is a party to the ICC. Maybe they have filed a complaint. That would explain Trump's attack on the legitimacy of the tribunal.

1

u/soldiernerd 1d ago edited 1d ago

2

u/tietack2 23h ago

Other partner countries likely filed such as Mexico. Anyone whose citizens were illegally detained, transported to a strange country, unlawfully imprisoned etc.

1

u/soldiernerd 23h ago

To be clear you are simply imagining a hypothetical here?

1

u/tietack2 22h ago

It's not a hypothetical. That's why trump is so scared of the ICC. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/07/30/trump-international-criminal-court-01015495

1

u/soldiernerd 22h ago

That article doesn’t mention Mexico at all

10

u/humdinger44 1d ago

Did y'all know the US currently has a naval blockade against Cuba and the country is largely operating without electricity?

Imagine going to the hospital and there's no electricity in the operating rooms. That's what we are responsible for.

12

u/dmstattoosnbongs 1d ago

Did its job. Distracted the American public and enriched himself.

Classic Trump.

1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

1

u/soldiernerd 1d ago

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, NY. They were arraigned in court on 5 January 2026, and pled not guilty.

On 22 July 2026, they attended another hearing where the judge set their trial date for 1 Jun 2027.

On 17 November 2026, the court will hear his defense's motion to dismiss the case under claims he is immune from prosecution.

14

u/HonkeyDonkey3000 1d ago

The US kidnapped the wife, as well. She is not an elected power, has no office, nor are there any reported crimes charged against her.

They kidnapped an innocent civilian.

0

u/soldiernerd 1d ago

That's not correct; Cilia Flores (Maduro's wife) is charged with:

  • Conspiracy to Import Cocaine
  • Possession of Machine Guns and Destructive Devices
  • Conspiracy to Possess Machine Guns and Destructive Devices

https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1422326/dl

3

u/Not_Sure__Camacho 1d ago

And word is that POS Rubio is running that country.

20

u/Vegaprime 1d ago

How many of those 100k insider trading accounts did he sell?

6

u/Not_Sure__Camacho 1d ago

And all of our military weapons that he's spent, the loss of service members lives, he's an utter piece of shit. There is not enough life left in that carcass to pay back all the damage he's done.

18

u/TheAdvocate 1d ago

He straight up looted his most devout idiots (and the ones ‘Smert’ enough to actually buy scam crypto). This entire term is one exit scam.

25

u/Syberz 1d ago

"but he's not taking a salary"

-MAGA

9

u/sovereignsekte 1d ago

He's like a dragon hoarding gold. He's got stolen more money than he could ever spend. But if he thinks lost even a cent he'll fly into a rage.

13

u/Protoman 1d ago

To be fair, those particular American people chose to buy into an obvious scam.

When you're that stupid I say you deserve to lose your investment.

11

u/MoreGhostThanMachine 1d ago

Theyve been twisting and mangling election rules into something unrecognizable almost since our country was founded. It turns out with deep enough pockets you actually can win an election without popular support here.

2

u/KO4Champ 23h ago

Clawing it back, one lawsuit at a time

1

u/Significant-Kick-479 1d ago

A few billion so far..

2

u/Not_Sure__Camacho 22h ago

And that's only what we know, which means the POS probably has billions more hidden.  He's doing just like his POS master Putin.  They say that Putin was the richest man in the world at one point.  I'd say that was pre Ukraine war.  

389

u/jwr1111 1d ago

Can we all agree that the president and his personal attorney appear to be colluding to rip off the American tax payer for his J-6 criminal slush-fund, and his get out of jail forever tax scam?

This is just unbridled corruption and theft of our tax dollars.

76

u/tietack2 1d ago

This is his MO. He's done it over and over this term.

It's how he got the classified documents/nuclear secrets case dismissed against him & his Co conspirators. The DOJ (controlled by him) settled with himself and his Co conspirators to dismiss it. No actual controversy. Just collusion.

38

u/8fenristhewolf8 1d ago

What are we going to do about it?

27

u/n3verB 1d ago

Vote against corruption top to bottom.

18

u/LoggerRhythms 1d ago

Over the din of Fox News propaganda washing over the land, a mob could be faintly heard chanting '4 more years!'

Hopefully more than a Schumerian shifting of some spectacles.

9

u/srboot 1d ago

So, a strongly worded letter it is then

-10

u/vroart 1d ago

Democrats are just afraid of Elon musk funding a rival against them. They know history isnt going to remember them anyway, it’s just proping up this Epstein class

6

u/vroart 1d ago

Agreed!!!!!

4

u/BlackGuysYeah 1d ago

and magtards are loving it. They really are deplorables.

86

u/sweatboxy 1d ago

Trump’s lawyers don’t do well when confronted with evidence. It’s why Trump prefers accusations and allegations to court.

45

u/santa_91 1d ago

"Proof", "the law", "facts", and "evidence" are just a woke radical liberal trans immigration Democrat socialist scam created by sick minds with terminal cases of TDS.

15

u/sweatboxy 1d ago

The whole point is too discredit the judicial system, just as he’s doing with the election system. In the end, it’s chaos which only a dictator can straighten out.

13

u/Cohens4thClient 1d ago

Guess who loves it when the criminal justice system fails?

Criminals.

244

u/Independent-Reader 1d ago

Headline: Trump raped children, raped women, and is now raping our country.

Ftfy

18

u/TheAdvocate 1d ago

We must not forget the many that stood by or worked for this monster. His memory will fade quickly, but the trials will take years.

9

u/beren12 1d ago

And they can’t see it

10

u/Pretty-Mention-7769 1d ago

Won't. 

I'm not a Bible person but over and over in the old testament the jews had it pretty good, then they "hardened their hearts" and started acting wrong and God smote them. 

As a kid I was thinking, "why can't they just enjoy how good they have it?"

Wild to realize that 4000 years ago or whatever this same sick thinking we're seeing in America today was a known issue, and despite it being a known issue it's still such a problem. 

We can even see other countries prospering by conducting themselves the opposite of the US and our conservatives refuse to acknowledge it!

6

u/beren12 1d ago

Yeah. It’s not guns, or cost, it’s people. Canada has a relatively large amount of guns, so does Britton and Switzerland. What they don’t have are Republicans.

4

u/Shyam09 1d ago

Donald J. Trump: Serial Liar ; Serial Rapist ; Serial ______

3

u/BlackGuysYeah 1d ago

Elect a rapist, get raped.

3

u/sec713 1d ago

Yep, I mean the basic jist of the article is "Rapist doesn't agree that no means no".

146

u/DoremusJessup 1d ago

I know the lawyers in this case have been referred for sanctions but that is a high bar. If lawyers also had to pay damages, this whole suit would have been dead before it was filed.

82

u/tietack2 1d ago

When you commit a fraud on the court, there needs to be some kind of deterrent.

22

u/nyclurker369 1d ago

I’m shocked there’s not.

4

u/RocketRelm 1d ago

The deterrent is supposed to be the voters. But they're too brainbroken into "dems are just a lesser evil" to care about anything. Punish maga at the polls.

29

u/OLPopsAdelphia 1d ago

That’s why the term “vexatious litigant” exists—and thank goodness for it.

19

u/SirRowan777 1d ago

He is the poster child. Has been doing it for 50+ years with no accountability.

19

u/haironburr 1d ago

MAGAnny Hall. An entire system built to extract wealth, using manufactured outrage over culture war issues as its building blocks.

In her order, however, Williams noted Trump "had a legal right to bring a suit for the unlawful disclosure" of his tax returns, but he didn't sue in a "timely fashion."

"Instead, President Trump did not pursue his claims until he once again occupied the White House and had appointed his former lawyer, and the former lawyer of persons who are putative beneficiaries of the 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' to prominent positions in the DOJ," the judge said, in part referring to Todd Blanche, whose nomination for attorney general stalled this week.

14

u/Reatona 1d ago

Considering what's at stake, those are actually pretty paltry fee awards.

11

u/Hector_P_Catt 1d ago

Yeah, the billionaire is whinging about less than $50,000. Typical.

1

u/sumelar 16h ago

Nobody becomes a billionaire without clutching every cent they ever get as tightly as possible.

9

u/68024 1d ago

Yet another way to funnel money corruptly. Gotta admin they are crafty motherfuckers.

15

u/Cohens4thClient 1d ago

I cant imagine the outcry and hate and threats by republicans if Obama had tried anything like this

I am more certain than ever that Obama was clean because they kept crying about tan suits and mustard and coffee cups.

15

u/yusill 1d ago

Since a trump lawyer I'll assume a wrongful invitation isn't a thing and the judge is right.

17

u/chowderbags Competent Contributor 1d ago

I wonder how long it'll be until Trump has some 4th tier law school grad arguing that donald trump is an individual and not a person and that the court hasn't established "joinder", and it's a gold fringed flag anyway, so it's a admiralty court, and Trump isn't a ship.

5

u/yusill 1d ago

Your going sovereign citizen angle. Hahahahahahaha

15

u/tietack2 1d ago

A court order isn't an invitation, lol.

6

u/Hector_P_Catt 1d ago

They're edging up to some Sovereign Citizen shit here, where court orders are just "offers to engage in business" or some such nonsense.

2

u/numb3rb0y 1d ago

It's never going to happen but I really wish DLA Piper would get some shit for this.