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It worked for Jr. Apparently he was too stupid to collude with Russia, despite his best efforts.

Not only that, but he was definitely informed. White House counsel and other informed professionals were privy to a bunch of meetings where people were talking about these ideas, and they shared their opinions and sometimes got in shouting matches or resigned.

I think Trump's brain genuinely cannot process the concepts of "right" and "wrong" as distinct from whatever he feels like doing, and so you could say: Yes, people whose job it is to be informed experts told him very clearly that these things were illegal, but his brain is so rotten and single-minded that he couldn't absorb that their advice might be objectively true, any more than a dog can understand a "keep off the grass" sign.

Fortunately I think the chance of his lawyers advancing that as a defense is pretty remote.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse

Unless you're a cop illegally detaining someone for breaking a non-existent law

From the before times. 🥲

...lacked fair notice that his advocacy in the instance of the 2020 presidential election could be criminalized

They're trying to insinuate that it was only just made illegal after the fact, like he didn't know that trying to commit election fraud was already a crime.

I swear they're about to take the Hitler defense. Just say, "yeah! We did it! We tried to overthrow the government! But only because we looooooove this country so much... And sure, sure, y'all say we're racist, but it's clear you don't understand just how racist we are. We are waaaaaay more racist than you can even conceive."

Then his idiot followers will talk about how he speaks the truth and says what's on his mind and he'll get locked up for, like, a year, during which time he'll pen his horrible instruction manual on how to destroy our country.

I'm pretty sure everyone in the federal government has had plenty of notice, since the US Constitution grants States the sole authority to operate elections.

I’m stealing this.

What? No one warned me that stealing was illegal!

unless youre a police officer.

the only people allowed to be completely ignorant of the law, and get away with it, are police officers.

sure, they are wrong, but whatareyougunnadoaboutit. courts have ruled "police officers do not need to know the law to enforce it" which means they can literally do whatever they want, and you have no choice until later.

awesome.

In general no. Some laws have this written as a specific out though right into them. Not aware if Georgia's laws have anything like this, but Trump Jr not being charged for criminal conduct in his meetings with Russian agents is a pretty famous example:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/mueller-report-no-evidence-trump-knew-about-trump-tower-meeting-n995816

Mueller declined charging him because "On the facts here, the government would unlikely be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the June 9 meeting participants had general knowledge that their conduct was unlawful. The investigation has not developed evidence that the participants in the meeting were familiar with the foreign-contribution ban or the application of federal law to the relevant factual context."

By no means am I saying this should be a valid defense, I don't think it should. As our laws are written though, sometimes being too dumb to know it's illegal might be a defense, at least for some of them.

Edit: this may not be the case, also see replies below.

Maritime law, folks. They don't want you to know about the - you know we have fantastic maritime laws in this country. Some of the best, maybe better than anyone else. We used to have them at least, but the radical leftists won't tell you about that. When I walk into the courtroom - and these are corrupt places, let me tell you. A lot of people are talking about how unfairly people are treated here, especially if you're the president. And when you're the president you know a thing or two about courtrooms, folks. I start talking about the courts and the law and the maritime law and everyone listening - many of them lawyers, some of which have good genes, very good genes, folks, some of them are Jewish - I hear a lot lawyers are Jewish but I don't know - when I talk about the courts they say "sir! Sir! How do you know so much about courts and law?" I don't know, folks, but maybe it's natural talent. But when you walk into the courtroom and you see the judges and the lawyers and the bailiff out to get you but you also see the tassels on the flag - they're beautiful tassels, folks. One on each corner of the beautiful American flag. Golden, too. Everyone will tell you that I love gold, I have a lot of things painted gold in Mar A Lago. But when you see the tassels you know it has to be maritime law, not the phony, corrupt laws they use in New York, or Georgia, or Colorado. It's gotta be the maritime law. But there's no sailors in the court so you know - we used to have fantastic sailors in this country, they'd sail huge distances on the oceans. Maybe hundreds of miles, very far. Very far folks. They were in the Navy but maybe on other boats, too. But when you don't see them in the courtroom you know they there's no maritime law. But when you see the beautiful gold tassels on the beautiful American flag you know there's supposed to be maritime law happening, but it's not happening, so you know it's all corrupt. It needs to be thrown out. It means I'm exonerated and everyone knows it. A lot of people are saying it. Very smart people.

I'd be like entering Fast 5 into evidence.

See your honor? The good guys were the robbers! They also love America and occasionally fuck members of their family.

“I didn’t see any sign on the door that said ‘breaking and entering not allowed,’ so how I was I to know?”

I'm pretty sure a 5 yr old could have told him it's illegal.

Narcs Prayer (again):

That didn't happen.

And if it did, it wasn't that bad.

And if it was, that's not a big deal.

And if it is, that's not my fault. <——

And if it was, I didn't mean it.

And if I did, you deserved it.

__

These are more of phases or stages of malignant NPD thinking. They can circle and circle and mix around again and again kind of like the ‘5 Stages of Grief’ can do.