Donald Trump has been accused of violating federal law by allegedly calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the ceasefire deal the U.S. is helping negotiate between Israel and Hamas.

The former president allegedly made the call on August 14, according to Axios, which cited two unnamed “U.S. sources who were briefed on the call.”

If Trump did make the call, he would potentially be breaking the law as the Logan Act, enacted in 1799, prohibits unauthorized private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments on behalf of the U.S.

American Muckrakers, an organization that states it seeks to hold politicians and officials accountable, has filed a request with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of State.

  • tetrachromacy@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    Republicans and ratfucking peace talks during an inhumane war of territorial expansion to make their political opponent look bad. Name a more iconic duo.

  • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
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    22 days ago

    Until I see a picture of Trump behind bars I will continue to assume he will continue to get away with everything forever.

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      22 days ago

      The only truthful thing he has ever said was “I could shoot someone on 5th Ave and not lose supporters.”

      Implied is that he also wouldn’t get arrested for it.

      Tie his bullshit with the recent articles about the pathetic FBI being afraid to go after Republican domestic terrorists and it’s just beyond absurd. “Home of the brave” my ass.

    • CaliforniaSober@lemmy.ca
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      22 days ago

      Worth pointing out how much this is also a republican thing. Nixon did it. Reagan pretty much did the same to sour Carter.

      H.W. Bush agreed.(?) The world shrugged…

    • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
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      22 days ago

      I believed for a couple of months that the us justice system wasn’t completely compromised, but I was stupid to do so.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      22 days ago

      People said he wouldn’t be prosecuted, and he was.

      People said he wouldn’t get indicted, and he was.

      People said he wouldn’t get convicted, and he was.

      Now we’re waiting on sentencing and carrying out that sentence, and people say that won’t happen, either.

      The justice system is slow, especially at the federal level. Some of that is due to deliberation, some of that is due to federal judges having too high of a case load, and some of that is due to the fact that Trump is a former President, and prosecutors and judges have to handle that very carefully. If acquitted, that’s it, prosecutors rarely have grounds for appeal. They need to walk into the court room with an airtight case.

      If you follow other federal cases, this kind of timeline is completely expected.

      Except for Judge Cannon. She’s just blatantly pulling things in Trump’s favor. The rest are doing their job. Edit: oh, and the Supreme Court, of course. They just fucked a lot of things.

      • Coelacanth@feddit.nu
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        22 days ago

        Except for Judge Cannon (…) Edit: oh, and the Supreme Court, of course.

        So what I’m hearing is… he’s getting away with everything forever?

        Look on a more serious note, I do think if he fails to become president again his luck probably has run out. The bad news is, between winning legitimately and stealing the election through House vote, Trump still is probably odds even to become president again - if not better.

        I know there is a chance sentencing and carrying out of it happens before the election, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
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          22 days ago

          Dude he’s always going to get away with it, he eats like shit and he’ll be dead soon anyway. The important thing is to implicate his conspirators that will be around for decades longer doing more fucked up shit in the background.

    • kautau@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      Nah, that could be AI generated. I won’t know it’s real until his first instinct is to immediately say that it should have been Hillary behind bars in a video clip, then I’ll know it’s really him

    • dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee
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      22 days ago

      I’m wondering what we’ll see first. Him passing of old age or him facing any consequence for his illegal actions.

  • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    22 days ago

    If the USA had the balls to enforce the laws as they have in the past this idiot would be executed for treason. Turns out fascism is a great tool you can use to avoid consequences as the State shudders at the terrorist following you’ve gathered and refuses to take action.

  • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    Dear right-wing dipshits who like to use the name Genocide Joe. Your orange turd wanna be emperor is actively sabotaging ceasefires and potential peace of said-genocide just to make current administration look bad. Donnie Death

    • BigFig@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      Right wingers don’t call him Genocide Joe, they LOVE the Palestinian deaths. It’s the “he’s not far enough left” people like .ml folks who use the name Genocide Joe

      • barsquid@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        Of course a mask off MAGA will say not enough people are being killed. But what’s the difference between what a farthest left .ml leftist would write and what a MAGA cosplaying as a leftist would write? Genuinely curious how to tell them apart.

      • experbia@lemmy.world
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        21 days ago

        they call him Genocide Joe if they think it will bother the liberal they’re speaking to. if they think it will hurt their enemy, they do not require something they say to align with their principles.

  • Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    The man literally stood three feet away from Putin, and bent the knee. Live, on television.

    The man invited Russian operatives into the White house months into his term, and kicked out his entire staff so the meeting would not be recorded, and has admitted to giving them all sorts of information.

    He received exactly zero punishment for that. He was never even investigated for that. And then there’s the Ukraine situation, which again…he received exactly zero punishment for.

    There’s no reason to believe this will go anywhere either. Multiple levels of the US court system, up to and including the Supreme Court, have not only shown that Donald Trump gets a different system of justice than most people, but they have no appetite for holding Trump to account at all.

    We need to pass a law that says that a judge must recuse himself if the case involves the person who appointed them, or someone with a relationship to that person. And this includes everything from the 3 stooges at the Supreme Court that constantly interfere on Trump’s behalf every time he’s in legal jeopardy to Kentaji Brown Jackson recusing herself if the Supreme Court hears a case about something that Biden signed into law. This is 2024. It would take me about 5 minutes to come up with some code that would randomly assign a judge to a case while also ensuring that someone involved in the case isn’t the person who appointed them. And my coding skills are about 20 years out of date.

  • vegeta@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    FTFY Donald Trump Accused of Commitedting commited ‘Massive Crime’ With Reported Phone Call

    • Nougat@fedia.io
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      22 days ago

      Donald Trump Accused of Commitedting commited ‘Massive Crime’ With Reported Phone Call Again.

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        I look forward to him receiving absolutely zero consequences because why would anything he did ever result in the slightest inconvenience for him?

        I don’t believe in god, but Trump makes me think that crossroads demons could be real.

      • barsquid@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        You don’t need to cross off phone for that one. There have been a couple high profile crimes on the phone and who knows how many others.

    • darharrison@lemm.ee
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      22 days ago

      “Well, the nickname is Genocide Joe, not Genocide Don, so obviously it’s Biden’s fault that Trump is sabotaging the ceasefire deals!”

    • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      I think one of them went with “it’s an unconfirmed report, not a transcript of the call” or some other weasel-y bullshit like that.

    • pezhore@lemmy.ml
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      22 days ago

      See, this is 4th dimensional chess. Trump knows that Bidens deal would be bad for Palestine and only Trump can get a better one. So akshually this is a good thing. /s

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    Wouldn’t it be nice if the self-proclaimed party of law and order would see that Trump ends up in prison where he belongs - and not in the white house?

    • aquinteros@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      what infuriates me is that eventually if he ends up in prison one way or another, they will all negate even knowing the guy, and act all ignorant of all the atrocities. the same happended here in chile with our dictator and people to this day defend him. one of the biggest defender of the dictator is going to run for president next year and to this day hasn’t recognized her role in the civil - military dictatorship that killed and imprisoned thousands of Chileans… really they act as if it never happened. it will be the same after good ol don is dead or in prison

    • mlg@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      Congress pretended the leahy law doesn’t exist, so I presume treason is handled much the same as genocide.

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
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    22 days ago

    Add it to the pile of crimes that he will likely never be punished for or the Justice system will bend over backwards to give him every available courtesy, while any “normal” person would be rotting in a prison cell already.

    • Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      And Nixon did the same with Vietnam.

      Being an opportunistic, amoral psycho who works to undermine the safety of Americans is practically a Republican presidential tradition at this point.

    • BrokenGlepnir@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      He did, but I think it only came to light after his brain was soup. Unless I am wrong and carter was aware earlier.

      • anon6789@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        New bits of evidence have been popping up over the decades, seemingly last in 2020. Much of the physical evidence has been long destroyed, and most of the people involved are now dead and gone and I wouldn’t call many of the people with supposed first-hand accounts reliable people to begin with. I just read through this article to refresh myself on the details and to see the latest updates.

        The personal accounts and evidence we do have doesn’t leave much room for the truth to be anything but that the Reagan/Bush campaign was involved, and that Daddy Bush likely had enough evidence he should have turned over to prove it, but today we would still likely not have enough to convict anyone, especially in the current political scene. There wasn’t much there about if Reagan himself was involved, the story made it sound as if he didn’t, but everyone around him certainly did. I don’t feel that negates him from responsibility for his people’s actions, but I do feel that is a difference worth mentioning.

    • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      People also used to rape their slaves. Times change. Maybe we start holding our ruling class to a higher standard. Perhaps being a shitstain on humanity should be met with disapproval.

  • DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    22 days ago

    Israel is already denying it so unless phones are bugged (they won’t admit this) there won’t be any physical evidence unfortunately

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      It was prosecuted twice. Both times before the Civil War. But nobody has ever actually been convicted.

      Things are different today. Prosecutors realize that a law criminalizing the act of negotiating is probably going to run into First Amendment issues.

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    22 days ago

    Of all the stuff Trump is accused and/or convicted of, this is the most not happening. More not happening than the Cannon case, because there’s at least a good possibility she gets removed.

    The Logan Act was passed by the first Adams Administration, it has only been prosecuted twice, and both were acquitted. Even a normal Supreme Court would probably strike down the law on First Amendment grounds. The slobbering wingnut Supreme Court we have now certainly would when Trump is involved.

    That all said, should voters put up with the idea that Trump is trying to fuck with the election by having Bibi continue a genocide? No, they absolutely should not.

    • ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world
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      22 days ago

      The first amendment has some pretty solid limitations. Someone could argue they don’t apply here, but I don’t think that would hold. Any constitutional lawyers have a take on this?

      That said, the likelihood that he’s convicted of it, sentenced, without a stay, where he sits a day in jail is sooooo slim that it’s practically two dimensional. As you said, there are barriers and interference everywhere, and he’s the king of stalling lawsuits.

      • Madison420@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        Call it a national security concern and gitmo his ass as an official presidential act he couldn’t ever be prosecuted for.

        • ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world
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          Yes, he’s been meeting with the leaders across the world. There’s no way they weren’t discussing the conflicts with which they are involved. I felt particularly betrayed by Volodymyr Zelenskyy meeting with Trump. If that wasn’t a sting to catch Trump in the act that was in trade for more arms and supplies, I’m angry.