Former FBI Special Agent and Lawyer Asha Rangappa speculates on Twitter that TFG may well have an insanity get out of jail free card up his sleeve after observing his looney-tunes legal maneuvering this past week:
Like, I’m trying to imagine the legal arguments he could make that would justify getting these docs back. One is: None of that stuff are government records. Unfortunately that went out the window with his executive privilege claim (and unofficial “declassification” claim) 2/
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) August 24, 2022
The last one is, I violated the Presidential Records Act, but so what? You can’t do anything to me. This is *sort of* what he seemed to be arguing in his weird lawsuit thingy, but 🤷🏽♀️? Again, no real legal argument on that or why 2071 and 793 wouldn’t apply to him 4/
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) August 24, 2022
So I think the only thing left is that he’s crazy. He thinks he’s still POTUS. Sort of like if you had a murder defendant who really believed they were the Queen of England and could execute people. I’m just trying to understand how his lawyers haven’t gotten through to him /END
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) August 24, 2022
As much as I, a foolish old man who worships Asha from afar, am loathe to disagree with with her, I don’t think asshole should be able to escape justice with such a defense, even though I also believe that the coward would sit in the dock and eat his own excrement if he finally perceives that prosecutors are serious about locking him into a small cement room.
What does the Rolling Stone article she cites have to say?
“IN THE WEEKS after the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid, former President Donald Trump repeatedly made a simple-sounding but extraordinary ask: he wanted his lawyers to get “my documents” back from federal law enforcement.
Trump wasn’t merely referring to the alleged trove of attorney-client material that he insists was scooped up by the feds during the raid, two people familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone. The ex-president has been demanding that his team find a way to recover “all” of the official documents that Trump has long referred to as “mine” — including the highly sensitive and top secret ones.
Sources close to Trump agree with outside legal experts that such a sweeping legal maneuver would be a long-shot, at best. “I hate to break it to the [former] president, but I do not think he is going to get all [the] top-secret documents back,” says one Trump adviser. “That ship has probably sailed.”
No, Asha, these are not the actions of an insane person, but the petulant demands of a man-child whose life of entitlement, lawlessness and lack of consequences have convinced him that he can get what he wants with enough whining, demanding and stamping of his feet.
But your followers are probably pretty smart, Asha, what do they have to say?
Because in his 75 years of life he’s never been held accountable for anything. He’s the sun and the moon and they only rise and set because of him. It’s time for the eclipse and solar or lunar will do.
— Jeanine (@arabnhorse1) August 24, 2022
Right on, Jeanine.
Exactly. His entire position–for decades–has always been that laws protect him but never constrain him. His implicit claim to a kind of "divine right" to impunity is what his supporters like about him and aspire to themselves.
— Brooke Harrington (@EBHarrington) August 24, 2022
Yup.
I fully expect his criminal defense team to put his competency in play (if indicted). I'd love to see the results of the court-ordered exam.
— Micheál 🇺🇸🇮🇪🏴🇲🇫🇺🇦 (@emefinma) August 24, 2022
Push comes to shove…
— 🔥LAM❄ (@LauraMcAfee1) August 24, 2022
🤔🤔🤔
👇👇👇
Seems like he’s up against being held accountable for the first time in his life. As potus he felt invincible. He still feels that way, absent the facts
— Jacquie (@MTorganizer) August 24, 2022
That's his defense and he already telling everyone thst he will act like he doesn't understand the situation to get away with it, he does that dozen of times and you all fall for it
— AJ4DIA (@unbearable83) August 24, 2022
Yup.
My bottom line, dear Asha?
Lock him up crazy or not.
I think it would probably be the best result if they find him guilty but insane. Locked up in an asylum is a fitting end.
😛
I don’t think his ego would tolerate himself being described as insane.
Don’t forget he’s a stable genius and he knows words like person, woman, man, camera, TV.
He also knows the difference between a lion, a rhinoceros and a camel (before Baby Donny and Earache went and shot them)
Well, this is one way to keep him out of prison. Keeps him locked up too. Win-win.
I can’t see him allowing his attorneys to use this kind of defense. I mean, he knows all about nuclear because his uncle was a physicist.
Asha Rangappa: “I’m just trying to understand how his lawyers haven’t gotten through to him”
Perhaps because they know he’s not going to pay them any mind since Trump knows everything. They probably hope they’ll get SOME kind of payment from him and if they argue with him about anything, it’s likely they’ll get fired and they already know what happens to people who’ve been stiffed by Trump.
If Trump had the mental faculties to sift through the documents and decide what to release and what to keep, then he has the mental faculties to stand trial for it.
Just because he is nuttier than a fruitcake doesn’t necessarily mean he is insane in the legal sense. Don’ we still go by something very like the M’Naughton rules? Canbeing delusional in thinking that government property actually belongs to you – does that constitute not lnowiing the difference between right and wrong? Possibly – but he still needs to be locked up.