• BigFig@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    That’s not how that works lol. You are called to testify, you are legally required to do it or face jail. You answer questions truthfully. It’s not a set up, it’s what happens to ANYONE who committed, helped commit, witnessed, or otherwise, a crime.

    • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      The “set up” was to ask incriminating questions to someone too dumb to plead the 5th.

      • Seraph@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        My understanding is they can’t plead the 5th. Well they can but the judge can assume the worst of they do use it.

        Apparently because it’s civil not criminal it works different.

        • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          He might have still been better off pleading the 5th and losing the civil trial than he will be testifying, probably losing the civil trial anyway, and also opening himself to potential criminal liability.

          • shutuuplegs@reddthat.com
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            1 year ago

            They lost the civil trial already by willful disregard of the courts requests and blatant misdirection. This whole show is just to determine how much they owe. While it might be pedantic, it is fairly critical to getting the story right as to what is happening.

            It’s why the questioning is going the way it is going. They could go deeper on certain questions, but the facts are already mostly clear. It doesn’t stop them from focusing on who of this gang might have lied.

        • noride@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Yeah, guilt can be inferred when pleading the 5th in a civil trial because you are effectively refusing to refute anything said against you.

    • eric@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think they put it in quotes because it isn’t truly a setup, but I agree that it’s still a horrible choice of words.

    • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Same thing happened with Mueller and all the claims of a “perjury trap.” It isn’t a trap when the prosecutor asks someone under oath if they committed a crime related to the current trial. It’s literally upholding the law.

      If the only options a defendant has, are to say they committed a crime under oath, or lie, then they did commit a crime.

      • squiblet@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        “Perjury trap” was definitely one of the more ridiculous things they came up with. It’s easy to not be caught in such a thing by not lying.

    • skweetis@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I don’t know anything about the legal details - besides what I’ve read on the internet, aka RESEARCH - but I unfortunately watched the clip of Junior getting interviewed about his knowledge of GAAP and, in my opinion, the prosecutor laughed and played along with his “jokes” and he of course loved the positive attention and let his guard down. To some degree that seemed like a pretty good “set-up”, but just like everything else, in a totally legal and normal to court proceedings way.