Is Trump legally qualified to be a presidential candidate?

[Bootstrap]

So I suppose this topic is over then.

Only if it stays on topic.

[Josh]

Ken,

None of those were crimes. They were civil actions, most of them private.

[Ken]

Ken,

None of those were crimes. They were civil actions, most of them private.

They are all crimes. Fraud is a crime. It just so happens in this country that white collar criminals tend to get fined rather than jail time. Because wealth has its privileges.

In any event. What makes one a criminal is committing the crime. Not being convicted of it. If you murder someone you are a murderer regardless of whether or not you ever get caught and convicted. Likewise if you steal then you are a thief. Regardless of whether you are ever caught and convicted. And fraud is simply a sophisticated form of theft.

[Josh]

The simple fact is that neither Biden nor Trump are “criminals”.

[Ken]

The simple fact is that neither Biden nor Trump are “criminals”.

What is your definition of a criminal?

According to Miriam Webster

criminal, noun
1. one who has committed a crime
2. a person who has been convicted of a crime

[ohio jones]

You are wrong.

You own stock in red ink?

Just in case, I'm issuing the Warning in black and white.

[HondurasKeiser]

The simple fact is that neither Biden nor Trump are “criminals”.

What is your definition of a criminal?

According to Miriam Webster

criminal, noun
1. one who has committed a crime
2. a person who has been convicted of a crime

Again precision is paramount - being found liable in civil actions is not the same thing as being declared guilty in criminal procedures. He has yet to be convicted of a crime.

[Ken]

Again precision is paramount - being found liable in civil actions is not the same thing as being declared guilty in criminal procedures. He has yet to be convicted of a crime.

Let's get real here.

Pretty much everyone here uses the more expansive definition of "criminal" as someone who has committed a crime. Why is it when Trump is correctly described as a criminal that people get offended when they themselves use the term in exactly the same way? For example, here on this forum it took me only a couple of minutes to find these examples of posters here using the term to describe people who have not yet been convicted of felonies in a court of law.

Josh and Grace have objected to Trump being described as a criminal because he has not yet been convicted. Let's see how they and others here have used the term on this forum in other contexts. In every example below the term is being used to describe people who have not yet been convicted of felonies:

Add to that, a world of open borders, and a very special gift to violent homicidal maniac criminals, such as the one who killed Laiken Riley.

I have hesitancy to get on board with those whole "15 year olds aren't responsible for their actions" thing. It's led to a lot of 15 year old career criminals in our cities who know they face zero accountability for what they do before they turn 18. I think that's a very bad thing.

These are illegal guns and have been since 1968. The only solution here is for law enforcement to start actually enforcing the law.
That means controversial things like profiling suspects likely to have an illegal gun, stop and frisk, no more easy bail, and strict sentencing of violent criminals. All things that have stopped in the last 10 years.
If you don’t want criminals shooting you with illegal guns, the laws have to be enforced against them. That means locking them up and depriving them of “civil liberties”.

Under Biden we seem to have a crime wave of illegals into the country and committing murders (or worse). This seems to be a good argument on its own for shutting the border down and not letting more violent criminals into the country.

Government corruption is endemic in Mexico (and dare I say much of Latin America). Eventually this kind of rife corruption leads to control by criminals instead of a democracy. This is one reason I am opposed to moving the population en masse from these kind of states into America, since it means the same sort of corruption will show up here.

You do have a point that some states, such as California and Illinois, have decided not to prosecute things like offences committed using illegal guns and instead let criminals go free who reoffend over and over, despite harsh laws about breaking gun laws being on the books.

I think that should stop, and activist DAs need to be removed who refuse to enforce existing laws against quality-of-life crimes and violent crimes. The amount of (illegal) gun violence in Chicago is ridiculous. Yet the new mayor of Chicago has promised to enforce even fewer laws than his predecessor.

Immigration can, and should be, under control and scrutiny. It is not just the innocent who seek better jobs but there are criminals fleeing the law in other countries as well as those who would be engaged in terrorism. As has been mentioned,

The symbols that are spray painted are either a diversion, or a deliberate means of someone who is molding public opinion, along with the mainstream media. That is what makes me suspicious - how these fires are being used for political purposes. Someone is doing this on purpose. And someone is not investigating or getting the results to catch these criminals, I believe, on purpose.

I'm actually not sure how much blame to place on the people or institutions who do this. I mean, they deserve some blame, but ultimately it is the fault of the actual criminals who go out and commit violence. I don't really know how you go after these people or institutions but they can at least be exposed for what they do, at a minimum.

“The revelation that the story was likely untrue all along comes only after anti-Catholic criminals committed hundreds of acts of hatred and vandalism against Catholic churches over the false accusation. In addition, leading figures on the political and cultural left have made the unfounded story a central part of heated rhetoric against Catholics.”

Of course, richer people may have armies of lawyers. That's a reason that white collar criminals often get off so easy. And they can mount "poor me" publicity campaigns that go viral, sometimes even enlisting their marketing departments.

The most galling thing is that I had to watch them steal the 2020 election, run the vote watchers out of the vote counting area and put cardboard over the windows to get away with their crimes. And now I and my family have to suffer because of these criminals.

Criminals do crime. that is what makes them criminals.

[RZehr]

Infraction, misdemeanor, crime, felony. Felon, criminal, offender, offender.
All felons are offenders, but not all offenders are felons.

I don’t think a conviction is necessary to earn the title, but it does require factually breaking the law. And if there is disagreement whether the law was in fact broken at all, then the title should also be expected to be in dispute. Then the court needs to make a judgment on the matter.

[Ken]

Infraction, misdemeanor, crime, felony. Felon, criminal, offender, offender.

All felons are offenders, but not all offenders are felon.

Based on the dictionary definition above, the question is whether committing the crime makes someone a criminal, or being convicted of that crime makes someone a criminal.

Clearly based how people use the term on this forum, it seems like most people believe it is the CRIME that make someone a criminal, not the CONVICTION. As Judas Maccabeus put it so succinctly when talking about Baltimore:

Criminals do crime. that is what makes them criminals.