Donald Trump has not been accused of paying for sex, but several supporters protesting outside of his trial on Monday wanted to make it clear that they have. It seems the crowds that come out to protest the persecution of the former president are getting smaller, and weirder. Richard Hall writes

Donald Trump has not been accused of paying for sex, but several supporters protesting outside of his trial on Monday wanted to make it clear that they have. It seems the crowds that come out to protest the persecution of the former president are getting smaller, and weirder

…

Today, however, the crowd had thinned to a handful of true believers and true characters – those who don’t leave their house without a giant flag, a bullhorn, and an offensive T-shirt they made themselves.

It’s not only that the crowds are getting smaller, it’s that they are getting significantly weirder.

Of the people willing to step up to a microphone outside the courthouse and defend Mr Trump for allegedly paying off a porn star to hide his alleged affair from prospective voters, two offered something of a wild defence: that they opposed the charges because they too had paid for sex on more than one occasion, and assumed most men had done the same.

It didn’t matter to them that Mr Trump is not being accused of paying for sex, but rather accused of having embarked on several extra-marital affairs and falsifying business records over payments made to hide those affairs from the voting public in 2016.

  • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
    473·
    9 months ago

    Isn’t that a crime in the US? Did these people just confess to crimes? But of course they’re “conservatives” so it’s OK.

    • Worx@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      37·
      9 months ago

      TBF, I wouldn’t want people to be persecuted just for saying out loud that they did a crime. Imagine if I went outside today and shouted, “My house doesn’t have a secondary fire escape and is therefore outside building regulations!”. Should I then be investigated for committing a crime, or should someone just tell me to shut up and stop shouting in the middle of the road?

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
            42·
            8 months ago

            Haha yeah you’d expect an example to be something somewhat close to a thing that people would actually say.

        • Worx@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
          5·
          8 months ago

          Haha definitely not relevant to me 😅

          I was just struggling to think of an example of a crime which wouldn’t warrant investigation. Flying Squid has a good example further down of confessing to a murder which had just happened, which would need to be investigated probably

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        191·
        9 months ago

        I would say it depends on the type of crime and the amount of detail. If you say out loud, “I murdered John Smith last Tuesday” and John Smith had been murdered last Tuesday, I think you should probably get investigated for the murder of John Smith.

        If you say “I’ve had sex with a prostitute” but don’t go further than that in terms of any details, definitely not.

      • frezik@midwest.social
        4·
        8 months ago

        IIRC, the person who owns the production company can’t be the one getting it on. Even that’s probably not enforced much.

        • IamSparticles@lemmy.zipEnglish
          5·
          8 months ago

          This was the plot of an episode of Boston Legal. I wouldn’t assume it would actually hold up in court. In the story a professor of sex studies had paid a prostitute to answer some interview questions for a study, and he “got carried away”. But he was filming it, so they argued that he was actually making a pornographic film, which is protected speech.

    • snekerpimp@lemmy.world
      11·
      9 months ago

      Not a crime everywhere in the US, cat houses are still around in Nevada. I’m assuming the gentlemen making these statements frequented a couple cities in that state to come to this assumption.

      • irreticent@lemmy.world
        13·
        8 months ago

        Actually, prostitution is not legal in Clark County (where Las Vegas is). It is legal in the rest of Nevada, though. The sex workers that advertise in Vegas are based just outside of the county lines and travel into the city when called. The cops pretty much just look the other way so it seems legal there.