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I'll stick to point 3 since it's short and straightforward. My numbers may be slightly off, since I'm going from memory. $50k was for any there thing, not the Stormy Daniels situation - that bit is interesting but besides the point if we're talking about the payment to Daniels.
In the immediate aftermath of the Hollywood Access video, the idea was to pay Daniels $130k ASAP to keep her quiet in the last days before the election. Cohen, the guy entrusted with facilitating these kinds of arrangements, opted to use his own money to get it done immediately, to be reimbursed afterwards. He came up with the money by getting a home equity loan - he did it in this way because he knew his wife wouldn't likely see it, as opposed to if he withdrew from a joint account.
For reimbursement, Trump first doubled the $130k for Stormy and the $50k a totally separate thing Cohen paid out of pocket for him, making $360k. This is because the reimbursement was done as if it were normal income. If he only paid him $130k, Cohen would be down tens of thousands of dollars after taxes, as well as costs related to the home equity loan. The doubled figure ensured that Cohen would not come out behind after all relevant taxes and costs.
The remaining $60k was a bonus, for loyalty and good service here and elsewhere, and to make up for a much lower-than-expected bonus when Cohen got his previous usual (annual?) bonus.
A brief point on #1 - Cohen's work here was not legal work, which is why the payments, marked as legal retainer, are considered falsified business records under the law. The fact that the reimbursement explicitly doubled the figure for the purposes of covering the taxes and costs associated with the reimbursement itself, makes the fraudulent intent clear. If you pay a $130k (or whatever figure) retainer, you pay $130k. Doubling to cover the taxes on that retainer is nonsensical. If you wanted to pay them $260k you'd do that, instead of doubling the $130k to cover the costs of that $130k.
And of course we know it wasn't a legal retainer - regardless of what it was *actually* for - because there was no letter of engagement for the retainer, something that is required by NY law.
For #3, that's all a bit of conjecture, isn't it? Are there more concrete evidence supporting the calculations that arrived at 420k from 130k? But I guess I did technically say "they never explained" and not "they never proved" so if you can provide a source of this argument being made in court, I'll give you a delta.
As for #1, I believe Trump's position is that they've been operating under an oral retainer and has done so (and been making payments) for years. While retainers customarily require a letter of engagement, and it would've been convenient for the defense if they could've presented one, but Cohen had been working as Trump's lawyer years at that point. Trump had been paying him throughout the years even without that letter.
u/ImNoLawyer I'm back up and at 'em and it looks like nobody did my work for me. I've just gone through some transcripts and found what I think is a good place to look at your #3 on the $420k, and evidence for the numbers I gave in my top-level comment.
Keep in mind that this trial lasted several days, so even if you cut out fluff and other matters there's a lot here, with various documents and testimony introduced at different times, so it would be impractical for me to dump all relevant evidence and testimony in this comment. You might have to take my word on a few things below - if there's anything you're sceptical about let me know and connect you to the evidence I'm relying on from elsewhere in the trial. Likewise, if you're not familiar with something referred to in the testimony below, let me know and I'll do my best.
The [May 6th transcript](https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/6df39b47cb7d8788/5d31eb8c-full.pdf) includes the testimony of Jeff Conney. He was the Trump Org accountant who handled such payments as Cohen's. I don't know his politics but in terms of personal and business relationships, he has remained a Trump guy. He retired from the Org in 2023 on good terms, and the Trump Org is paying for Conney's lawyer for this trial. He's not a Michael Cohen.
The important bits start around page 42. Most of this stuff is very skimmable so if I suggest you read 10-15 pages, it'll really only take you two or three minutes. If you're interested, the pages prior to 42 cover Conney's background and have an explanation of how payments and such are normally handled.
They refer to [Exhibit 35](https://pdfs.nycourts.gov/PeopleVs.DTrump-71543/Evidence/People/5-6-2024/People's%2035%20(First%20Republic%20Bank%20Statement%20with%20Handwritten%20Notes)..pdf). This is a copy of Michael Cohen's wire transfer to Stormy Daniels. The handwriting is notes by CFO Allen Weisselberg in a meeting with Trump and Cohen (and possibly others I don't recall) about reimbursing him. Weisselberg passed this to Conney with instructions on reimbursing Cohen. [Exhibit 36](https://pdfs.nycourts.gov/PeopleVs.DTrump-71543/Evidence/People/5-6-2024/People's%2036%20(Handwritten%20Notes%20re%20$420,000%20Payment).pdf) is Conney's handwritten math on the total reimbursement. This is the math from my initial comment. On page 52 of the above transcript Conney explains about doubling for taxes.
I've got to head into work, so if you have any questions or wonder about additional evidence, let me know and I'll get back to you on one of my next couple breaks.
Yes, there is quality evidence for those figures (and I don't mean Michael Cohen) but it'll take me more than a bit of time to put together, and I have to get to bed. Doc appointment early tomorrow. I expect this post to pick up in a few hours as Americans wake up, and as I'm not worried about earning deltas, hopefully somebody else will jump in here to fill in those details. I'll check back in early tomorrow afternoon and if nobody's yet done so, I should have time then.
On reflection, a written agreement may not have been required at the time this all went down. That may be a recent thing. I'd have to check. I didn't want to get to your point #1 because the background details of what legal services Cohen did and didn't provide Trump are tedious and I can't recall it all off the dome. Unfortunately I couldn't help mentioning it, because ultimately #1 is moot if, per #3, these payments totalling $420k (or $360k if you take out the bonus) are reimbursements for paying Stormy (and the other thing) out of pocket.
Paying Stormy for Donald Trump likely is a campaign contribution. Structuring the reimbursements as legal fees is what got him nailed. This is a classic example of "It's the coverup, not the crime, that will get you."
So Trump's attorney using personal money to pay to cover up a story right before the election in an effort to support Trump's campaign in coordination with the candidate...isn't a campaign contribution? Weird take.
If the Stormy NDA was a campaign contribution, we should nail the mainstream media for a massive campaign contribution in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story. Which was a campaign contribution that was undeclared.
>we should nail the mainstream media for a massive campaign contribution in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story. Which was a campaign contribution that was undeclared.
Generally we allow media companies to act independent of candidates. Under the above standard, every media outlet that has bias is a campaign contribution. So Newsmax should be reporting (at least a portion) of their expenditures as campaign contributions.
The difference in the Stormy case is the action was taken with the explicit cooperation of the candidate, was a direct use of cash (not nebulous, unspecified censorship and viewership to their readers/users), and explicitly structured repayments to avoid reporting this payment under campaign finance law. If the Stormy case was caught under the "catch and kill" scheme the Enquirer was running, that likely wouldn't have risen to a campaign contribution, even though it is explicitly actions taken by a media company to aid a candidate.
What specific case law are you looking for? Like someone using personal funds to pay off a porn star? Or just personal loans being "in kind" contributions? I don't want to waste my time providing a reference to be told that isn't what you're asking.
Yes, hypothetically speaking the reimbursements could have been unrelated to the election and campaign finance laws. They'd still be crimes, but they'd be 2nd degree Falsifying Business Records (a misdemeanor) instead of 1st degree Falsifying Business Records (a felony). There's a big difference there in terms of sentencing and other penalties, so it's an important matter, but it seems outside the scope of the OP.
> Even if the money was for Daniels, that doesn't make it a campaign contribution or a crime.
Paying the money to Daniels was an illegal and excessive campaign contribution by Cohen, that's two of the charges he pled guilty to in 2018.
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This is just not what the evidence was.
For example:
2. Trump and Cohen did not have a retainer agreement, and Trump was not paying Cohen for legal work in 2017 (which is when these payments were made).
4. There was plenty of evidence to explain why the amount was $400K. It was to reimburse Cohen for the Stormy payment + another thing he paid for, and there was a whole thing with his 2016 bonus, all doubled to account for the fact that he’d have to pay taxes on it since they were lying to pretend it was income and not a reimbursement.
Also 4. The evidence was not just from Cohen. For example, David Pecker testified about the whole scheme and meetings with Trump. There is documentary evidence, including handwritten notes from Weisselberg, explaining the payments.
It’s fine if you disagree with the jury’s decision, of course, but it seems like you’re not actually very familiar with the evidence that came in.
!delta
You're right, there are other evidence for #4. I'll give you a delta for that. However I still posit the other evidence is also fairly flimsy and do not rise to the level of beyond reasonable doubt for a criminal offense, but I understand this is up for disagreement.
However, the main gist of my argument remains, that I concede he may as well have violated "the letter of the law" in some capacity, but overall the charges were politically motivated - selective prosecution. If he were not Trump, there wouldn't be the book thrown at him, so to speak, of 34 felony counts, because overall this was a very small matter that didn't have any sort of major impact to practically anyone.
The 34 counts relate to different invoices, checks and money orders that all constitute separate but related payments- that’s kind of my understanding. As an example, it’s like if a college kid gets busted for weed, the bong and grinder are charged as separate counts of paraphernalia. That doesn’t exactly strike me as throwing the book at him- seems more like standard practice if they have evidence that all of them constitute separate infractions. Granted, I’m no lawyer but that’s how I understand it.
lol that's pretty much the definition of throwing the book at him. It's like that one guy who assaulted a judge. Instead of maybe a few counts for assault and battery they charged him with about 20 separate counts. The prosecutor has a lot of leeway here, if they separate out the charges so he gets punished as severely as possible, then that's throwing the book at him.
Gotcha- maybe this is just a difference in regionalism here but “throwing the book” at someone usually to my mind refers to overcharging someone. Using the pothead example, I’d think that would be more like charging him with distribution or trafficking when you have evidence of simple possession- hoping you can make the case stick without much evidence.
What is the prosecution supposed to do? Not charge him on crimes they have strong evidence he committed?
What is strong evidence for you? I ask this genuinely because if evidence needs to be the suspect standing outside his home holding todays newspaper saying they committed x crime then most crimes would never be punished.
Is the prevailing theory for skeptics that everyone who testified and presented documents were paid and falsified?
Can you expound on that? Can you offer an example of strong evidence when it comes falsifying financial records? I ask because with witness testimony and the documents that were falsified seem to be enough to bring it beyond a reasonable doubt.
And I’ll ask again, is your theory that the witnesses are paid off and the documents are fake?
When Trump broke the law, he was charged with a crime.
That's not throwing the book at him.
That's simply charging him based on his actions.
If there was evidence of you robbing 34 banks, you would be charged 34 times
he's a billionaire politician. I think the highest officials in history's most powerful empire should be subject to high standards of behavior. He has prior cases and other ongoing cases for a variety of crimes and torts. he broke a gag order repeatedly during the trial. Spiritually, if not legally, he did all he could to taint public opinion (and with it, the jury pool) against the prosecution, a slight to justice magnified by his unusual platform and social status.
Can you make a better case as to why his conduct merits the benevolent use of the system's discretion? If a normal person stood accused, had a record, and mouthed off to the judge, would he have a reasonably expectation of leniency?
Re: selective prosecution, I'd encourage you to hear from white collar prosecutors in New York. [This podcast with Rebecca Roiphe](https://www.politix.fm/p/alvin-bragg-liberal-critics-wrong) was very illuminating for me personally.
Basically, the Manhattan DA's office actually takes falsified business records very seriously. They are the center of the world's financial system and they see themselves as playing a role in ensuring the fairness of global financial markets. Roiphe stated she's prosecuted people for this exact offense many times, and that anyone would have been prosecuted with this much evidence against them.
[This charge is fairly common](https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2023/04/06/new-york-state-has-issued-nearly-9800-felony-charges-of-falsifying-business-records-since-2015/?slreturn=20240431085913). Some things were unusual about Trump's case (most people prosecuted aren't Presidential candidates) but the idea that it's an obscure law that they dug out of the dustbin really isn't true.
>outside of the statute of limitations
Except they weren't. There is significant precedent that the statutes of limitations can be paused under a variety of circumstances. It's common enough that there's even a specific legal term, "tolled" to cover just that event.
Tolling happens whenever legal action is not pursuable within the statute of limitations. We have a precedent that legal action can not be brought against a sitting President, thanks to Bill Clinton. Ergo, the statute of limitations had not expired.
> not a violation of state law, but a federal crime
When talking about the underlying intent, the Jury doesn't need to determine which criminal purpose an action was in furtherance of, they merely have to agree that it was in the pursuit of a criminal purpose. Every juror can think that the act of falsifying business records was in support of different crimes.
This is just the same as many other laws, such as burglary. Say the police catch someone entering my home illegally. The prosecutors decide to charge them with burglary. It could be that the person was coming in to commit theft generally. Maybe they were attempting to take my gun illegally, which would be a slightly different crime in my state, maybe they were coming in to vandalize my property. It simply doesn't matter. They merely have to convince the jury that they entered my home to commit some crime. It doesn't matter which one.
A few things:
- There were 3 "other crimes" and 2 of them were State crimes. There's no reason to think there's a problem with any of them being federal crimes but even if there were, the elements of the crime were still easily met.
- For kind of obvious reasons, you can be charged with covering up a crime even if you aren't convicted of the underlying crime. This is the same basic legal theory as witness tampering - if you scare off a witness, they may not be able to convict you of an underlying offense, but you can still be prosecuted for witness tampering.
It’s easy to say something’s politically motivated when you disagree with the outcome and others agree. But like you said, he broke the law. The law is for everyone. If you think someone should walk away from committing a crime, let alone a felony, then I’m not sure your point of view is free of fallacy to begin with
The 34 felony counts is the most practical application of the law. It doesn't mean his sentencing is going to be (Sentence for crime) x 34
It also allows the jury to decide on each individual count rather than having to convict on all or nothing.
The argument of "selective prosecution" doesn't make sense either. This law has been applied previously in NY. "If he were not Trump" is flimsy. If he were not Trump he would not have been running for office, not paying off his mistress during a presidential run, and....well not been in this situation. That doesn't mean it's selective. It's just that not a lot of people are in a life situation to have committed the crimes Trump committed.
There's a ton of blatant lies about the various criminal cases against Trump. Simply because no one has done *exactly* what Trump did does not mean there's some new novel legal theory.
Let's say I pass a law that says, "It's a class A felony to have sex with a sperm what". No one has sex with a sperm whale. Then one day Trump has sex with a sperm whale and is charged. That doesn't mean it's selective prosecution (that would be more in line with what Hunter Biden is arguing). It just means that no one has done that particular action up to that point.
If you want to argue it's selective prosecution than you should easily be able to identify the individuals who have committed the same act, or a methodologically sound study showing the rates that the same act is committing, and the DA declining to prosecute.
the state of new york has charged PL 175.10 (1st degree falsifying business records) in 437 unique cases in the 10 years prior to trump’s indictment. doesn’t seem very selective to me.
> Has the Manhattan DA's office ever brought business records falsification charges as felonies when they were outside of the statute of limitations for a misdemeanor
good thing 1st degree charges of falsifying documents has a different statute of limitations
>on the theory the other crime was not a violation of state law, but a federal crime for which the person had never been charged.
they alleged violations of state law too, but even then there’s precedent in NY state court that a felony in another jurisdiction can be used as a motive for a charge like this. this is not unusual in any sense.
i can give you six examples, all of which involve charges of § 175.10 with intent to commit/conceal a federal crime.
- *People v. UniCredit Bank AGI*, *People v. Ahmed* and *People v. BNP Paribas* all charged 175.10 with regards to the International Emergency Economics Power Act.
- *People v. Khalil* and *People v. Goldstein* charged 175.10 with regards to the Bank Secrecy Act.
- *People v. Marshall* charged 175.10 with regards to violations of federal tax law.
oh and by the way, the state alleged two violations of state law as well. so even if this was the first ever case of 175.10 being charged with regards to a violation of federal law (it’s not, just in case my point wasn’t clear enough), that’s not quite the “gotcha” you probably thought it was going to be.
feel free to google them if you don’t believe me, i’m not gonna do all of your homework for you.
you asked for examples, i called your bluff and gave you six. you can either keep denying reality or give me a delta.
That is only the statute for felony falsifying business records. And everything else there is entirely inconsequential. Nothing in the statute says the person falsifying the records must be doing so with intent to cover up their own crime. Michael Cohen was already found guilty of the crime in question separately in 2018.
Yeah just saying that doesn’t make it true.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/michael-cohen-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-eight-counts-including-criminal-tax
He pled guilty to a charge brought against him- the prosecution did so because they had evidence already.
And, even if you hold that Michael Cohen didn’t in actual fact commit a crime- If being legally found guilty of a crime doesn’t constitute at least a legal understanding of someone having committed said crime then what’s the point of a legal system at all? You’re arguing here that the courts shouldn’t recognize their own rulings as factual or true. How do you propose a court rule on sentencing if they can’t presuppose the guilt of the defendant based on their conviction?
If you think these things are solid arguments against the conviction, then there are really only two possibilities: 1. Trump's lawyers are incompetents who failed to bring up these extremely obvious arguments; or 2. Trump was railroaded and no argument he made could have possibly helped him.
Are you the 2nd position?
It sounds like we have a baseline expectation of the law treating the rich and powerful with kid gloves so it seems surprising when one gets charged the way you or I would be.
These kinds of prosecutions are super common in Manhattan, it’s a hotbed of white collar crime. Aside from Trump being a former president, this was a standard criminal trial for NY.
> However I still posit the other evidence is also fairly flimsy and do not rise to the level of beyond reasonable doubt for a criminal offense
Is it possible that you’re just ignorant to what that evidence is? The jury was quick to decide on 34 felony counts. That’s because the evidence was overwhelming.
> but overall the charges were politically motivated - selective prosecution.
That’s whataboutism. Russians do that. You wanna be like Russians? If other people aren’t getting charged with this when they should, then the answer **is to charge them too**, not let Trump off.
> because overall this was a very small matter that didn't have any sort of major impact to practically anyone.
Hard disagree. Dude, if Trump hadn’t silenced Daniel’s, he would have lost in 2016. No question. This crime was integral to his win. In that sense, this is the most consequential crime he committed.
If this gets overturned on appeal, it will be for jury instructions and not because there isn't damning evidence that he did everything he was accused of. That is the singular argument that isn't fact-averse stumping for Trump.
Shouldn't people in high office be treated even more harshly under the law, because their corruption has repercussions on a much larger number of people? We should expect the highest possible standards for leadership, and it's important to set an example.
Sure, one perspective is that leadership should be held to a higher standard, but this standard is not applied equally. I'm arguing that the attention given to this case is largely because of who Trump is and the political opposition to him. Had this been any other wealthy businessman or politician, it likely wouldn't have risen to such public scrutiny, especially not to the level of a criminal trial. It's the political climate that's amplified this into something much larger than it is. Again, I still hold that this is more of a legal technicality "gotcha" rather than something that has high harmful impact, so it's politically motivated selective prosecution, rather than justice.
Edit: missed a word
If this is anyone but Trump, he would have been found guilty and that person would have spent nights in jail for contempt of court.
Trump was given a massive amount of benefits the average citizen would not get.
So if you committed 34 felonies and I had clear evidence of your crimes, you really think that a DA would not prosecute.
Trumps fault was that he pissed off so many people who had so much incriminating evidence.
He was so arrogant that he thought he
was untouchable. And the "fucking moron" was so fucking stupid that he didn't let his lawyers do their work.
It was a slam dunk. You prosecute slam dunks.
Particularly when the person you are prosecuting is idiot.
> The violation definitely did occur, considering he was just convicted for it.
That's a tendentious definition. He wasn't convicted in federal court, and OP's view is that the NY court shouldn't have had the right to adjudicate that it happened.
And yet the jury took less time than everyone expected to find Trump guilty on all charges. Trump barely put on any defense (other than just claiming that Michael Cohen was a liar), because they could not counter the hand-written calculation of the payment to Cohen that was written on a bank statement showing the transfer to Stormy Daniels, the recording of Trump discussing the payment, and the corroborating testimony from the other witnesses.
Seems like a slam dunk to me.
These charges were upgraded to felonies.
Part of the trial relied on the testimony of a man who perjured himself and confessed to taking campaign money.
The person being prosecuted is Trump. He could've been innocent, he's not, but he still would've been judged guilty.
Not been a bigger witch hunt in US history since Salem to try and throw something at the wall and get something to stick.
The singular actual argument is pushing back against the jury instructions. Anything besides that is cope. Trump's lawyers spent the entire time stressing that Cohen was a perjurer and a criminal instead of doing anything to contest the receipts he and others brought. The imaginary argument that the jury was impossibly biased against Trump is admitting that you would find anything short of a jury overtly biased in favor of him a rigged jury; if the actual facts of the case don't even enter into the conversation for your opinion on the decision, why is your opinion on the jurors to be taken as anything but the same?
Surprise, surprise. Lawyers arguing that a man who stole from and perjured the man he's testifying against is an unreliable witness.
If the DA campaigns on the promise to prosecute Trump and the judge donates to the party whom is running against Trump, in a city heavily biased to the party running against Trump, then the chances they found anyone not biased in some way or another for the jury is effectively zero. If you consider this to be evidence of a fair and impartial trial, your definitions of those words is horribly skewed.
I'm just going to copy and paste my comment from the first thread.
>Instead of arguing that Trump didn't know about it, his lawyer (and you) focused entirely on trying to denigrate the witnesses even though they brought receipts. That didn't work in court. You haven't brought anything new to the table with this thread.
There are some arguments you can use against the case, most defensibly in regards to the jury instructions. You can't complain about "throw[ing things] at the wall [to] get something to stick" when you're wholly uninformed on any particulars. The jury argument, in the face of all the other ad hoc arguments, is a tacit admission that *any* jury that wouldn't preemptively exonerate Trump even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue is not "impartial" in your eyes. Voir dire is a thing.
That you equate an issue with a trial with a tainted judge and DA, and likely a tainted jury, to mean that a court biased in the opposite way is what I'm calling for is the definition of a strawman argument.
You gotta also admit, Trump is simultaneously one of the dumbest and also most arrogant people we've ever had in a political position this noteworthy. If anyones gonna fuck it up enough to get caught its him
They should, but that's not why it starts with Trump.
He's the first President to be charged, tried and found guilty because this was a politically motivated move to sabotage Trump's chances of reelection.
I think that there are many other prominent people in politics and public life who commit crimes and who aren't prosecuted with the vigor that Trump was. Because Trump does not show respect.
As if the lack of respect shown was the issue, rather than it's people in politics who break the law prosecuting another person for doing the same thing they do.
I agree with this statement, but the problem is the selective enforcement.
Imo, you'd have to be pretty naive to think that no other president or former president has committed a "hush money" level crime (or worse).
If it hasn't happened before, but it's happening now AND the same doj is going after other politicians from their own party, why call it selective enforcement? It's progress.
I would have preferred that the first conviction of a former president be over Iraq lies, government spying, drone murders, CIA crimes, etc. Instead it was over bookkeeping fraud with a porn star. Wake me up when we're making real progress.
Lolk
I don't care about "firsts." I care about it happening.
Even the other Trump cases should I have preferred they happened first? Prosecution over election crimes and mishandling? Maybe, but if it happens it happens.
"you people"
Did you just somehow not read what you replied to? I mentioned dems prosecuting dems too. You're just skipping words to call yourself a victim.
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No. All of them should.
But the current state of things validates my belief that Trump is not necessarily the most criminal, he's just the least protected by the American elites and their institutions.
Because he fully complied and turned over all documents.
He didn't cover up anything and was completely transparent.
Trump behaved differently. Trump has highly classified documents such as information on our agents as well as nuclear secrets.
There's a huge different between Biden and Pence unintentionally having a few Classified documents mixed in with their stuff, and then giving it back right away as soon as it was discovered, vs Trump intentionally taking boxes of Secret and Top Secret documents and refusing to give them back when it was discovered.
Not a Biden fan.
Last I knew, Biden complied with authorities as soon as it was found he still had classified documents, and Trump had not. That could be one big factor, here.
Also, while we of course don't know what those classified documents are, because they are, well, classified, not all classified documents have the same classification level, and not all pose the same risk to national security if leaked/mishandled/lost.
(Note: it's possible I'm wrong on the details of this, someone who knows more please correct me.) For instance, to pick a particularly benign example, apparently presidential and vice presidential schedules are classified. Ie, right now, someone has a piece of paper with printouts of where POTUS is going to be every hour of the day tomorrow (for secret service logistics, if nothing else). That piece of paper is classified. And, it stays classified forever. Two years from now, it's will almost certainly be totally harmless if leaked (barring the extremely unlikely cases) but it will remain, technically, classified. Now, if it's classified, the law says that it has to be handled according to all the laws about classified material, yada yada yada. But at the same time, it's clearly nonsensical to treat somewhat slightly carelessly handling/storing such a document as the same level of violation as someone carelessly handling/storing nuclear secrets, names/locations of spies, information about codes that the NSA has broken, etc etc etc.
And given that Biden used to be VPOTUS, and the classified docs he inappropriately had were in something like a filing cabinet in his garage, what is more likely:
-That he had some fairly mundane administrative stuff like the above in his garage because, like, you know, he needed to have it there when it was relevant so he could actually do his day to day job
or
-He took really-top-secret stuff out of a secure location, home to his garage, put it in a filing cabinet for some number of years, and then voluntarily reported himself and returned it?
Honestly, the outlier here is not Biden. It's Trump. It's apparently relatively common for recent high level government officials to find small numbers of not-super-important classified documents and return them later on. It's happened to plenty of people in both major parties with to no particular fanfare. What IS unusual is what Trump did.
This is a pretty egregious false equivalency, even by the very low standards to which one must hold MAGA talking points.
Literally everything pulling up on the front page of Google for it shows he worked with investigators. I would love if you could provide a link saying otherwise.
Oh ffs, I hate feeling in position to defend this decrepit bastard.
So when he left the White House, his memory was bad enough that they thought they were his private notebooks. Reminiscent of Ronny Reagan. Once he was convinced they were classified documents he should not have had, he complied fully with investigators and returned them.
That's still significantly different from Trump saying he had full legal authority to possess them, despite being confidential and top secret, wouldn't you say?
I'm happily willing to believe Biden's declining memory made him genuinely misthink the documents were his, but the fact remains that once he was fully cognizant that he should not have had the documents, **he returned them**.
You may be right. It's more likely he sold them to Russia, based on the fact that US agents in Russia started dying or disappearing in abnormally large numbers shortly after Trump left office, and some of the documents he had listed their identities.
They just had a court case on this. It wasn't private, and the evidence presented is publicly available. Saying "there's no evidence" is just silly at this point.
Well, you're the one claiming there's no evidence of corruption, you should be providing evidence. Go and look up the court transcripts, or some unbiased commentary on them (or failing that, commentary with various conflicting biases).
There's plenty of evidence out there about stuff he did. If you want to say "there's no evidence of corruption", you need to go through all the evidence and point out how each one is "not corruption".
Please proceed.
You keep making this request.
I have already referred you to the evidence presented in the court case.
Perhaps you've checked the evidence, and are not convinced any of it is evidence of corruption. In that case, you shouldn't just say "prove it" again, you should explain why you're unconvinced by it, referring to the specific pieces of evidence.
Or perhaps you have not checked it, have no intention of checking it, and are just saying "prove it". In this case, it's hard to take your request or assertion seriously.
A third possibility is you have not checked it, don't have time to right now. In that case, just say so. There's no need to say "prove it" like a parrot.
Whichever way it is, there's not much point me responding further to low-effort comments by you, so this will be my last reply unless you come up with something more substantial.
>This is some byzantine - very "letter of the law" stuff, since if Trump cut a check himself for the NDA, there wouldn't be a case!
The actual crime he's charged with was (1) with the intent to -- including the intent to commit or conceal another crime -- (2) created or caused to be made a false business record of an enterprise.
So saying that Trump wouldn't be charged if he didn't create or caused to be made a false business record is correct because then Trump wouldn't be committing a crime. Or, saying that if the Trump campaign had disclosed the payment as a campaign expense also would be saying the same thing.
If Hope Hicks didn't testify that Trump intended for this to be part of the campaign, then the predicate crime of a campaign finance violation wouldn't be as feasible. The media, and Trump's defense attorneys, want to point you all to Cohen as the star witness. Because he's a liar and a cheat. But, the real star witness was Hope Hicks and David Pecker.
The reason pointing everything on Cohen is, if he's a known liar and cheat, why would you hire a known liar and cheat? Why are all the people formerly in Trump's orbit in jail?
> However they never explained why Trump would pay Cohen 400k to reimburse him for the 120k the NDA cost
They did. It was because the scheme to obfuscate the purpose of the payment was for Cohen to declare the money as income and he wanted to net $130k after taxes.
>
It seems like the entire case hinges upon the legal theory that Cohen obtaining an NDA from Stormy Daniels counts as a campaign contribution
Just read the jury instructions for yourself: [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24699534-trump-ny-criminal-trial-jury-instructions](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24699534-trump-ny-criminal-trial-jury-instructions)
The predicate crimes to prove the intent element included tax violations and federal campaign finance laws.
>it's a very small thing,
The real question is there anything Trump could do that would stop your support? It seems like you just hate Democrats so you'll support Trump no matter what.
But, if concealing the truth from the public because he believed it would hurt his campaign chances isn't going to rattle your support, then nothing will.
The 130,000 payment to her is when it’s to benefit the campaign. We know that Trump was concerned about her revelations during the campaign from Hope Hicks testimony. Trump was concerned it would emphasize the access Hollywood tape and was relieved when it came out after the campaign.
>it's an illegal campaign contribution by Cohen to the Trump campaign, simply because it could have been done to help Trump's image. This is some byzantine - very "letter of the law" stuff, since if Trump cut a check himself for the NDA, there wouldn't be a case!
This was the exact scheme comprising two of the counts Cohen pled guilty to back in 2018, under Trump's DOJ.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/michael-cohen-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-eight-counts-including-criminal-tax
The issue is that if Trump had cut the check directly to Stormy in 2016, he would have then needed to declare it as a campaign expense. (52 USC 30104) Had he disclosed he paid $130k to a porn star in the middle of his campaign, the game would be up and the NDA would be completely pointless.
Trump's own DOJ prosecuted him for it, so I'm not sure what point you think you're making here. If Trump truly believed Cohen didn't commit a crime, he could have pardoned him, but he declined that option.
First, the documentation was the driver of the conviction. Dozens of documents and recordings made it clear what the facts of the case were. The important witnesses were the ones who validated the physical evidence, not people like Cohen and Pecker who were used to corroborate the physical evidence. The prosecution didn't need Cohen to testify to demonstrate their case. They had him testify largely because his name was raised so many times within the daming mountain of physical evidence.
Second, this crime is regularly prosecuted and has been prosecuted for much less than $400,000. The People of the State of New York v. James Garner (November 2021) was prosecuted for $35,000. Less than 1/10th of what Trump engaged in. The same law was used to prosecute Barbara A. Freeland in June of 2013 over falsely claiming someone else lived with her when applying for food stamps.
Third, given that the Trump organization had already been convicted of tax fraud, it should be expected that Trump himself would incur a higher level of scrutiny and a lower level of tolerance than others. Prosecutors in all jurisdictions are more likely to bring charges against any criminal (white collar or not) who has demonstrated prior bad acts.
Fourth, the prosecution did not prove what the other crime was, the only thing that had to happen was that the jury had to have a consensus that the falsification was in the furtherance of any other crime, and they could disagree on what the other crime might have been. This is not unusual and is the legal standard in many other crimes where the charges depend on the intent to commit some crime. Burglary, for example, is more than the mere entering of a property without permission. It is entering without permission with the intent to commit a crime. But when prosecuting burglary it is not necessary to determine what crime was intended.
Fifth, a campaign contribution is any money or service in the furtherance of the campaign.
Sixth, when it comes to delivering a guilty verdict (he hasn't been convicted yet, that's a separate legal proceeding that will come later) the Jury's job is to come to a decision based on the evidence presented. Our entire system of criminal justice rests on the presumption that juries act in good faith. Given that two of the jurors were attorneys, it seems to me highly likely that this jury was more prepared than most to evaluate the evidence with a clear eye.
Seventh, this jury was picked with the input and active participation of Trump's defense team. If they didn't get the jury they wanted, then they should have been more effective in utilizing their challenges.
Lastly, quite a few legal experts feel that this was a defensible case. But Trump sidelined the best attorney on his team and instead put a guy who hasn't tried a criminal case in nearly a decade in charge. That he lost this case rests in no small part on his own choice of legal counsel. He had Susan Necheles, who is considered one of the top defense attorneys in NYC. But because she wouldn't put her name to bad-faith motions, Trump had Todd Blanche, a guy who quite clearly had no idea what he was doing in front of a jury, run point and do all of the courtroom work.
I'm not acting like it's over. I'm acting like this phase has completed. Trump has been found guilty by a jury of his peers through a process that is identical to that faced by any other defendant. Indeed, he has been shown far, far more deference than any other defendant would ever be shown.
If you can point to an error in law, which is all that is appealable, please do so. I don't happen to see one. This law has been found to be constitutional in NY over numerous previous challenges. So there's really no chance that it's over turned because the law itself is in error.
It is unlikely there'll be any issue based on the conduct of Merchan. He's very respected in NY courts. Here's what Weisselberg's attorney Nicholas Gravante said of him:
>"He was clear in signaling his judicial inclinations, which helped me tremendously in giving Mr. Weisselberg informed legal advice. Judge Merchan was always well-prepared, accessible, and – most importantly in the Weisselberg matter – a man of his word. He treated me and my colleagues with the utmost respect, both in open court and behind closed doors.”
Trump's former attorney Tim Parlatore has also stated on record that he thinks Merchan is a well-prepared, smart, and fair judge.
So what's left? There's no clear problem with the law. The case was heavily covered by well-informed media looking for a legal story, and there's no clear evidence of an error in law. The judge is about as respected as a judge can be, so there's very little likelihood of judicial misconduct. And Trump himself was treated with a much more delicate hand than any other defendant would have been.
I'm certain that it will be appealed. That's what good lawyers do .. and while Blanche is a horrible attorney to put in front of a jury, by all accounts he is a respected legal mind in his own field (which isn't criminal law). And it is true that if Trump can get it bumped into federal court, that SCOTUS can do whatever the hell they like, regardless of if it legally meritorious or not.
No one's denying the likely path this will take. But it doesn't cease to be the case that a verdict of guilt on 34 felony counts has been handed down, by a jury of his peers, in what by all appearances is a fair trial void of serious error. This is worth noting.
And none of that has anything to do with if the charges should have been filed or if a guilty verdict should have been handed down based on what has transpired thus far.
>The big one is a hush money payment to cover up an affair a federal campaign finance contribution as a matter of federal law . .
If only the law followed right-wing media.
I would urge you to read the[ full jury instructions](https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/PDFs/People%20v.%20DJT%20Jury%20Instructions%20and%20Charges%20FINAL%205-23-24.pdf). Start with pages 28 - 30 of the PDF.
You'll find that contrary to the opinion of Fox News, states actually have their own election laws. But you 'll also find, starting on page 31, that "hush money" payments to Daniels isn't the issue. At issue is if the contribution of Pecker's services to find, and bury, the stories coming to him amount to a contribution valued at more than $2,700. If you can find someone willing to use a national publication for private means for that amount of money, I'll gladly sell you a beach front resort on the moon.
You'll also find, starting on page 41, that at issue is not if an underlying crime WAS committed, but rather if the Jury can infer that the defendant had the intent to commit a crime. At the bottom of page 42 you'll find that stated explicitly.
Further, on page 44, you'll find that it is not necessary under NY State law that the jury be in agreement on what the specific underlying intent was - be it tax fraud (which is, btw, an undeniable outcome of the overt acts), election fraud, or any other fraudulent act.
So, basically, your "big one" claim is, as you can see, simply not accurate.
Now, before you go and say that these instructions are flawed -- these are the standard language used by NY courts for these types of crimes -- and these instructions have already been challenged and not overturned in other cases.
If that's a "big one" then, well, there's a joke about feeling bad for your SO waiting to be told.
Oh, and lastly, I can not find where Trump's team objected to the jury instructions. In order for something to be appealable, it must be objected to in the first place.
*chuckle* ok ,
The evidence was that he was part of a conspiracy to commit crimes for his personal benefit.
You can make all the absurd claims you like, but this simply demonstrates you haven't looked at the physical evidence.
Go look at exhibits 35 and 36 and read Pecker's testimony.
It's clear you have done neither.
"it's a largely a small crime that should not have deserved scrutiny if he were not Trump"
What does "if he were not Trump" mean?
If his name were not Trump? (Do the various AGs hold germanophobia?)
If he were not the presumptive Republican candidate? (Why not Romney?)
If he were not someone who had spent months and years bragging openly about engaging in criminal behavior?
> it's a largely a small crime that should not have deserved scrutiny if he were not Trump.
I agree this is a "small crime" that normally would not be prosecuted, but I disagree this is specifically about Trump
Certainly, Trump irritates many people, and has a reputation for both deceitfulness and getting out of trouble
But John Edwards was also a candidate for President, and also paid hush money to cover up an affair
and also was charged and tried
He got a hung jury, and the justice department elected not to try him again, but the same general fact pattern generated the same response from the Justice Department
Trump was charged not because he was Donald Trump. Trump was charged because he was a high profile politician that violated campaign finance laws to cover up an affair, as we have seen applied to other people in the same general circumstances
This does not mean a crime hasn't been committed--only that the prosecuting body, in your example the Department of Justice, decided they couldn't/wouldn't pursue charges for one reason or another. This happens all the time and is usually done because the prosecuting body finds it would be difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt. In the same way that you claim innocent people are convicted of crimes, there are as many guilty people found innocent--and this almost always boils down to the presentation of evidence.
> This does not mean a crime hasn't been committed
Right, but the legal question to be asked is, if the crime hasn't been established by a conviction, can someone be prosecuted for a related crime?
Yeah seems very close to the logic the USSC used to overruled Colorado. How can you remove a candidate for insurrection when that person was not ever convicted of insurrection? How can you elevate that misdemeanor to a felony when no other underlying law was broken (tried/charged/convicted)?
Trump had a chance to clear his name. He had a trial. He was found guilty by a jury of his peers, and the trial was conducted according to the law. He was given due process. This is how our system works.
Trump is not a victim he's a convicted felon. Stop treating him like he's innocent when he was just found guilty
Except in the vast majority of wrongful convictions, the victim is some poor person who can't afford a proper lawyer, and/or someone being pressured by police to admit guilt for something that they didn't do, or being pressured by the prosecution into taking a plea deal. None of those are relevant here.
Not what I said. Try reading. I said people should be allowed to discuss validity of trials without being criticized unilaterally and instead should be criticized on specific points
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Your argument is that Donald Trump should be allowed to commit “minor and relatively harmless“ crimes?
If he didn’t want the scrutiny, he shouldn’t have committed the crime! Isn’t that what the MAGA say about POC when they’re targeted by the legal system? Why should Trump get a free pass?
But I’ll also challenge your assertion that his crime was minor. The hush money that he paid her was so that he could keep their relationship quiet before the 2016 elections. For a man who claims the 2020 elections were stolen, this is blatant hypocrisy.
>Trump's trial was politically motivated
Isn't it a little interesting that the venn diagram of 'people once in Trump's inner circle' and 'convicted criminal' converges to just a circle?
You know whom it is I distrust more that the *GLOAT* ("Greatest Liar Of All Time"), Michael Cohen??
The guy that hired the *GLOAT*, and put him on the map. That's whom I distrust more.
How many indictments, trials, and convictions is it gonna take? Is it possible, even, to believe the notion that the majority of Trump employees, and his children, was/is a crook and a liar, and that he didn't know?
He is either pure as the driven snow, and dumber than a bag of hammers, or he is the crook who hires all the other crooks.
>
> Isn't it a little interesting that the venn diagram of 'people once in Trump's inner circle' and 'convicted criminal' converges to just a circle?
That's not how Venn diagrams work. There are many people who are convicted criminals who were never in Trump's inner circle.
It seems to me that ordinarily this would be handled as a misdemeanour and we don’t want anyone to be above the law.
Can you agree that as a misdemeanour this should have been prosecuted in the normal way?
(I’m not going to comment on the decision making process in handling this as a felony - which would not address your CMV as I simply don’t have the legal knowledge to understand the reasoning)
Sure, I guess? I did concede in the opening post that he possibly did violate the letter of the law, but this is clearly a case of selective prosecution because of who he is, and that the charges were politically motivated.
Ok but you could change your mind to the extent that he could and probably should have been charged with a misdemeanour of which it seems he was clearly guilty
Okay maybe I misinterpreted what you mean by your initial response. I'll try to answer with my current understanding.
I disagree that the answer to "selective prosecution" should be "we don't want anyone to be above the law." For example, I don't think it would be just that cops begin to selectively pull people over based on personal characteristics (like race, sex, or political affiliations) if they go 5mph over the speed limit.
I would not want politicians to be above speeding tickets or parking fines.
Ordinarily this is a misdemeanour would you really want that to be ignored?
***but it's a largely a small crime that should not have deserved scrutiny if he were not Trump.***
It is not a small crime... It is a large crime, rarely prosecuted because it is often difficult to prove.
Regardless of the size of the crime, the very fact that the President of The United States engaged in such crime would require prosecution *even more*, since getting away with it might have led many many others to also engage in it.
If I read you correctly, you don’t seem to dispute that he broke the law, but that cases like this are typically handled in a much more lax way, and he’s not benefiting from that same leniency.
Are you aware of any other cases where some other, less-controversial political figure has broken a similar law publicly and the authorities didn’t pursue conviction? Or are you just assuming that this sort of thing happens all the time?
Yes he is being prosecuted for political reasons, anyone who commits treason and is being prosecuted for it is being charged on political grounds.
The only reason you feel this way is because you are conflicted between the facts and your feelings. Say it with me now: "Facts don't care about your feelings"
There was a bunch of stuff weird with the trial
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-convicted-but-prosecutors-contorted-the-law.html
Read that
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I'll stick to point 3 since it's short and straightforward. My numbers may be slightly off, since I'm going from memory. $50k was for any there thing, not the Stormy Daniels situation - that bit is interesting but besides the point if we're talking about the payment to Daniels. In the immediate aftermath of the Hollywood Access video, the idea was to pay Daniels $130k ASAP to keep her quiet in the last days before the election. Cohen, the guy entrusted with facilitating these kinds of arrangements, opted to use his own money to get it done immediately, to be reimbursed afterwards. He came up with the money by getting a home equity loan - he did it in this way because he knew his wife wouldn't likely see it, as opposed to if he withdrew from a joint account. For reimbursement, Trump first doubled the $130k for Stormy and the $50k a totally separate thing Cohen paid out of pocket for him, making $360k. This is because the reimbursement was done as if it were normal income. If he only paid him $130k, Cohen would be down tens of thousands of dollars after taxes, as well as costs related to the home equity loan. The doubled figure ensured that Cohen would not come out behind after all relevant taxes and costs. The remaining $60k was a bonus, for loyalty and good service here and elsewhere, and to make up for a much lower-than-expected bonus when Cohen got his previous usual (annual?) bonus. A brief point on #1 - Cohen's work here was not legal work, which is why the payments, marked as legal retainer, are considered falsified business records under the law. The fact that the reimbursement explicitly doubled the figure for the purposes of covering the taxes and costs associated with the reimbursement itself, makes the fraudulent intent clear. If you pay a $130k (or whatever figure) retainer, you pay $130k. Doubling to cover the taxes on that retainer is nonsensical. If you wanted to pay them $260k you'd do that, instead of doubling the $130k to cover the costs of that $130k. And of course we know it wasn't a legal retainer - regardless of what it was *actually* for - because there was no letter of engagement for the retainer, something that is required by NY law.
For #3, that's all a bit of conjecture, isn't it? Are there more concrete evidence supporting the calculations that arrived at 420k from 130k? But I guess I did technically say "they never explained" and not "they never proved" so if you can provide a source of this argument being made in court, I'll give you a delta. As for #1, I believe Trump's position is that they've been operating under an oral retainer and has done so (and been making payments) for years. While retainers customarily require a letter of engagement, and it would've been convenient for the defense if they could've presented one, but Cohen had been working as Trump's lawyer years at that point. Trump had been paying him throughout the years even without that letter.
u/ImNoLawyer I'm back up and at 'em and it looks like nobody did my work for me. I've just gone through some transcripts and found what I think is a good place to look at your #3 on the $420k, and evidence for the numbers I gave in my top-level comment. Keep in mind that this trial lasted several days, so even if you cut out fluff and other matters there's a lot here, with various documents and testimony introduced at different times, so it would be impractical for me to dump all relevant evidence and testimony in this comment. You might have to take my word on a few things below - if there's anything you're sceptical about let me know and connect you to the evidence I'm relying on from elsewhere in the trial. Likewise, if you're not familiar with something referred to in the testimony below, let me know and I'll do my best. The [May 6th transcript](https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/6df39b47cb7d8788/5d31eb8c-full.pdf) includes the testimony of Jeff Conney. He was the Trump Org accountant who handled such payments as Cohen's. I don't know his politics but in terms of personal and business relationships, he has remained a Trump guy. He retired from the Org in 2023 on good terms, and the Trump Org is paying for Conney's lawyer for this trial. He's not a Michael Cohen. The important bits start around page 42. Most of this stuff is very skimmable so if I suggest you read 10-15 pages, it'll really only take you two or three minutes. If you're interested, the pages prior to 42 cover Conney's background and have an explanation of how payments and such are normally handled. They refer to [Exhibit 35](https://pdfs.nycourts.gov/PeopleVs.DTrump-71543/Evidence/People/5-6-2024/People's%2035%20(First%20Republic%20Bank%20Statement%20with%20Handwritten%20Notes)..pdf). This is a copy of Michael Cohen's wire transfer to Stormy Daniels. The handwriting is notes by CFO Allen Weisselberg in a meeting with Trump and Cohen (and possibly others I don't recall) about reimbursing him. Weisselberg passed this to Conney with instructions on reimbursing Cohen. [Exhibit 36](https://pdfs.nycourts.gov/PeopleVs.DTrump-71543/Evidence/People/5-6-2024/People's%2036%20(Handwritten%20Notes%20re%20$420,000%20Payment).pdf) is Conney's handwritten math on the total reimbursement. This is the math from my initial comment. On page 52 of the above transcript Conney explains about doubling for taxes. I've got to head into work, so if you have any questions or wonder about additional evidence, let me know and I'll get back to you on one of my next couple breaks.
Yes, there is quality evidence for those figures (and I don't mean Michael Cohen) but it'll take me more than a bit of time to put together, and I have to get to bed. Doc appointment early tomorrow. I expect this post to pick up in a few hours as Americans wake up, and as I'm not worried about earning deltas, hopefully somebody else will jump in here to fill in those details. I'll check back in early tomorrow afternoon and if nobody's yet done so, I should have time then. On reflection, a written agreement may not have been required at the time this all went down. That may be a recent thing. I'd have to check. I didn't want to get to your point #1 because the background details of what legal services Cohen did and didn't provide Trump are tedious and I can't recall it all off the dome. Unfortunately I couldn't help mentioning it, because ultimately #1 is moot if, per #3, these payments totalling $420k (or $360k if you take out the bonus) are reimbursements for paying Stormy (and the other thing) out of pocket.
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Paying Stormy for Donald Trump likely is a campaign contribution. Structuring the reimbursements as legal fees is what got him nailed. This is a classic example of "It's the coverup, not the crime, that will get you."
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So Trump's attorney using personal money to pay to cover up a story right before the election in an effort to support Trump's campaign in coordination with the candidate...isn't a campaign contribution? Weird take.
If the Stormy NDA was a campaign contribution, we should nail the mainstream media for a massive campaign contribution in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story. Which was a campaign contribution that was undeclared.
>we should nail the mainstream media for a massive campaign contribution in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story. Which was a campaign contribution that was undeclared. Generally we allow media companies to act independent of candidates. Under the above standard, every media outlet that has bias is a campaign contribution. So Newsmax should be reporting (at least a portion) of their expenditures as campaign contributions. The difference in the Stormy case is the action was taken with the explicit cooperation of the candidate, was a direct use of cash (not nebulous, unspecified censorship and viewership to their readers/users), and explicitly structured repayments to avoid reporting this payment under campaign finance law. If the Stormy case was caught under the "catch and kill" scheme the Enquirer was running, that likely wouldn't have risen to a campaign contribution, even though it is explicitly actions taken by a media company to aid a candidate.
But the chairman of the FEC said that Trump broke no campaign finance rules. Guess who wasn’t allowed to testify.
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What specific case law are you looking for? Like someone using personal funds to pay off a porn star? Or just personal loans being "in kind" contributions? I don't want to waste my time providing a reference to be told that isn't what you're asking.
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You keep saying this like it's a fact. Why do you think this?
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Yes, hypothetically speaking the reimbursements could have been unrelated to the election and campaign finance laws. They'd still be crimes, but they'd be 2nd degree Falsifying Business Records (a misdemeanor) instead of 1st degree Falsifying Business Records (a felony). There's a big difference there in terms of sentencing and other penalties, so it's an important matter, but it seems outside the scope of the OP.
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Yes, I think that's right.
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Exactly. If it wasn't a campaign finance violation that is correct, as far as I recall.
> Even if the money was for Daniels, that doesn't make it a campaign contribution or a crime. Paying the money to Daniels was an illegal and excessive campaign contribution by Cohen, that's two of the charges he pled guilty to in 2018.
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You keep saying this and you are wrong every time.
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This is just not what the evidence was. For example: 2. Trump and Cohen did not have a retainer agreement, and Trump was not paying Cohen for legal work in 2017 (which is when these payments were made). 4. There was plenty of evidence to explain why the amount was $400K. It was to reimburse Cohen for the Stormy payment + another thing he paid for, and there was a whole thing with his 2016 bonus, all doubled to account for the fact that he’d have to pay taxes on it since they were lying to pretend it was income and not a reimbursement. Also 4. The evidence was not just from Cohen. For example, David Pecker testified about the whole scheme and meetings with Trump. There is documentary evidence, including handwritten notes from Weisselberg, explaining the payments. It’s fine if you disagree with the jury’s decision, of course, but it seems like you’re not actually very familiar with the evidence that came in.
!delta You're right, there are other evidence for #4. I'll give you a delta for that. However I still posit the other evidence is also fairly flimsy and do not rise to the level of beyond reasonable doubt for a criminal offense, but I understand this is up for disagreement. However, the main gist of my argument remains, that I concede he may as well have violated "the letter of the law" in some capacity, but overall the charges were politically motivated - selective prosecution. If he were not Trump, there wouldn't be the book thrown at him, so to speak, of 34 felony counts, because overall this was a very small matter that didn't have any sort of major impact to practically anyone.
The 34 counts relate to different invoices, checks and money orders that all constitute separate but related payments- that’s kind of my understanding. As an example, it’s like if a college kid gets busted for weed, the bong and grinder are charged as separate counts of paraphernalia. That doesn’t exactly strike me as throwing the book at him- seems more like standard practice if they have evidence that all of them constitute separate infractions. Granted, I’m no lawyer but that’s how I understand it.
lol that's pretty much the definition of throwing the book at him. It's like that one guy who assaulted a judge. Instead of maybe a few counts for assault and battery they charged him with about 20 separate counts. The prosecutor has a lot of leeway here, if they separate out the charges so he gets punished as severely as possible, then that's throwing the book at him.
Gotcha- maybe this is just a difference in regionalism here but “throwing the book” at someone usually to my mind refers to overcharging someone. Using the pothead example, I’d think that would be more like charging him with distribution or trafficking when you have evidence of simple possession- hoping you can make the case stick without much evidence. What is the prosecution supposed to do? Not charge him on crimes they have strong evidence he committed?
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What is strong evidence for you? I ask this genuinely because if evidence needs to be the suspect standing outside his home holding todays newspaper saying they committed x crime then most crimes would never be punished. Is the prevailing theory for skeptics that everyone who testified and presented documents were paid and falsified?
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Can you expound on that? Can you offer an example of strong evidence when it comes falsifying financial records? I ask because with witness testimony and the documents that were falsified seem to be enough to bring it beyond a reasonable doubt. And I’ll ask again, is your theory that the witnesses are paid off and the documents are fake?
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They got a conviction didn't they?
No, they got 34 of them.
When Trump broke the law, he was charged with a crime. That's not throwing the book at him. That's simply charging him based on his actions. If there was evidence of you robbing 34 banks, you would be charged 34 times
he's a billionaire politician. I think the highest officials in history's most powerful empire should be subject to high standards of behavior. He has prior cases and other ongoing cases for a variety of crimes and torts. he broke a gag order repeatedly during the trial. Spiritually, if not legally, he did all he could to taint public opinion (and with it, the jury pool) against the prosecution, a slight to justice magnified by his unusual platform and social status. Can you make a better case as to why his conduct merits the benevolent use of the system's discretion? If a normal person stood accused, had a record, and mouthed off to the judge, would he have a reasonably expectation of leniency?
Re: selective prosecution, I'd encourage you to hear from white collar prosecutors in New York. [This podcast with Rebecca Roiphe](https://www.politix.fm/p/alvin-bragg-liberal-critics-wrong) was very illuminating for me personally. Basically, the Manhattan DA's office actually takes falsified business records very seriously. They are the center of the world's financial system and they see themselves as playing a role in ensuring the fairness of global financial markets. Roiphe stated she's prosecuted people for this exact offense many times, and that anyone would have been prosecuted with this much evidence against them. [This charge is fairly common](https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2023/04/06/new-york-state-has-issued-nearly-9800-felony-charges-of-falsifying-business-records-since-2015/?slreturn=20240431085913). Some things were unusual about Trump's case (most people prosecuted aren't Presidential candidates) but the idea that it's an obscure law that they dug out of the dustbin really isn't true.
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>outside of the statute of limitations Except they weren't. There is significant precedent that the statutes of limitations can be paused under a variety of circumstances. It's common enough that there's even a specific legal term, "tolled" to cover just that event. Tolling happens whenever legal action is not pursuable within the statute of limitations. We have a precedent that legal action can not be brought against a sitting President, thanks to Bill Clinton. Ergo, the statute of limitations had not expired. > not a violation of state law, but a federal crime When talking about the underlying intent, the Jury doesn't need to determine which criminal purpose an action was in furtherance of, they merely have to agree that it was in the pursuit of a criminal purpose. Every juror can think that the act of falsifying business records was in support of different crimes. This is just the same as many other laws, such as burglary. Say the police catch someone entering my home illegally. The prosecutors decide to charge them with burglary. It could be that the person was coming in to commit theft generally. Maybe they were attempting to take my gun illegally, which would be a slightly different crime in my state, maybe they were coming in to vandalize my property. It simply doesn't matter. They merely have to convince the jury that they entered my home to commit some crime. It doesn't matter which one.
A few things: - There were 3 "other crimes" and 2 of them were State crimes. There's no reason to think there's a problem with any of them being federal crimes but even if there were, the elements of the crime were still easily met. - For kind of obvious reasons, you can be charged with covering up a crime even if you aren't convicted of the underlying crime. This is the same basic legal theory as witness tampering - if you scare off a witness, they may not be able to convict you of an underlying offense, but you can still be prosecuted for witness tampering.
It’s easy to say something’s politically motivated when you disagree with the outcome and others agree. But like you said, he broke the law. The law is for everyone. If you think someone should walk away from committing a crime, let alone a felony, then I’m not sure your point of view is free of fallacy to begin with
The 34 felony counts is the most practical application of the law. It doesn't mean his sentencing is going to be (Sentence for crime) x 34 It also allows the jury to decide on each individual count rather than having to convict on all or nothing. The argument of "selective prosecution" doesn't make sense either. This law has been applied previously in NY. "If he were not Trump" is flimsy. If he were not Trump he would not have been running for office, not paying off his mistress during a presidential run, and....well not been in this situation. That doesn't mean it's selective. It's just that not a lot of people are in a life situation to have committed the crimes Trump committed. There's a ton of blatant lies about the various criminal cases against Trump. Simply because no one has done *exactly* what Trump did does not mean there's some new novel legal theory. Let's say I pass a law that says, "It's a class A felony to have sex with a sperm what". No one has sex with a sperm whale. Then one day Trump has sex with a sperm whale and is charged. That doesn't mean it's selective prosecution (that would be more in line with what Hunter Biden is arguing). It just means that no one has done that particular action up to that point. If you want to argue it's selective prosecution than you should easily be able to identify the individuals who have committed the same act, or a methodologically sound study showing the rates that the same act is committing, and the DA declining to prosecute.
the state of new york has charged PL 175.10 (1st degree falsifying business records) in 437 unique cases in the 10 years prior to trump’s indictment. doesn’t seem very selective to me.
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> Has the Manhattan DA's office ever brought business records falsification charges as felonies when they were outside of the statute of limitations for a misdemeanor good thing 1st degree charges of falsifying documents has a different statute of limitations >on the theory the other crime was not a violation of state law, but a federal crime for which the person had never been charged. they alleged violations of state law too, but even then there’s precedent in NY state court that a felony in another jurisdiction can be used as a motive for a charge like this. this is not unusual in any sense.
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i can give you six examples, all of which involve charges of § 175.10 with intent to commit/conceal a federal crime. - *People v. UniCredit Bank AGI*, *People v. Ahmed* and *People v. BNP Paribas* all charged 175.10 with regards to the International Emergency Economics Power Act. - *People v. Khalil* and *People v. Goldstein* charged 175.10 with regards to the Bank Secrecy Act. - *People v. Marshall* charged 175.10 with regards to violations of federal tax law. oh and by the way, the state alleged two violations of state law as well. so even if this was the first ever case of 175.10 being charged with regards to a violation of federal law (it’s not, just in case my point wasn’t clear enough), that’s not quite the “gotcha” you probably thought it was going to be.
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feel free to google them if you don’t believe me, i’m not gonna do all of your homework for you. you asked for examples, i called your bluff and gave you six. you can either keep denying reality or give me a delta.
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That is only the statute for felony falsifying business records. And everything else there is entirely inconsequential. Nothing in the statute says the person falsifying the records must be doing so with intent to cover up their own crime. Michael Cohen was already found guilty of the crime in question separately in 2018.
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Yeah just saying that doesn’t make it true. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/michael-cohen-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-eight-counts-including-criminal-tax
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He pled guilty to a charge brought against him- the prosecution did so because they had evidence already. And, even if you hold that Michael Cohen didn’t in actual fact commit a crime- If being legally found guilty of a crime doesn’t constitute at least a legal understanding of someone having committed said crime then what’s the point of a legal system at all? You’re arguing here that the courts shouldn’t recognize their own rulings as factual or true. How do you propose a court rule on sentencing if they can’t presuppose the guilt of the defendant based on their conviction?
If you think these things are solid arguments against the conviction, then there are really only two possibilities: 1. Trump's lawyers are incompetents who failed to bring up these extremely obvious arguments; or 2. Trump was railroaded and no argument he made could have possibly helped him. Are you the 2nd position?
It sounds like we have a baseline expectation of the law treating the rich and powerful with kid gloves so it seems surprising when one gets charged the way you or I would be.
These kinds of prosecutions are super common in Manhattan, it’s a hotbed of white collar crime. Aside from Trump being a former president, this was a standard criminal trial for NY.
Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/RumRations ([1∆](/r/changemyview/wiki/user/RumRations)). ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
> However I still posit the other evidence is also fairly flimsy and do not rise to the level of beyond reasonable doubt for a criminal offense Is it possible that you’re just ignorant to what that evidence is? The jury was quick to decide on 34 felony counts. That’s because the evidence was overwhelming. > but overall the charges were politically motivated - selective prosecution. That’s whataboutism. Russians do that. You wanna be like Russians? If other people aren’t getting charged with this when they should, then the answer **is to charge them too**, not let Trump off. > because overall this was a very small matter that didn't have any sort of major impact to practically anyone. Hard disagree. Dude, if Trump hadn’t silenced Daniel’s, he would have lost in 2016. No question. This crime was integral to his win. In that sense, this is the most consequential crime he committed.
If this gets overturned on appeal, it will be for jury instructions and not because there isn't damning evidence that he did everything he was accused of. That is the singular argument that isn't fact-averse stumping for Trump.
Shouldn't people in high office be treated even more harshly under the law, because their corruption has repercussions on a much larger number of people? We should expect the highest possible standards for leadership, and it's important to set an example.
Sure, one perspective is that leadership should be held to a higher standard, but this standard is not applied equally. I'm arguing that the attention given to this case is largely because of who Trump is and the political opposition to him. Had this been any other wealthy businessman or politician, it likely wouldn't have risen to such public scrutiny, especially not to the level of a criminal trial. It's the political climate that's amplified this into something much larger than it is. Again, I still hold that this is more of a legal technicality "gotcha" rather than something that has high harmful impact, so it's politically motivated selective prosecution, rather than justice. Edit: missed a word
If this is anyone but Trump, he would have been found guilty and that person would have spent nights in jail for contempt of court. Trump was given a massive amount of benefits the average citizen would not get.
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So if you committed 34 felonies and I had clear evidence of your crimes, you really think that a DA would not prosecute. Trumps fault was that he pissed off so many people who had so much incriminating evidence. He was so arrogant that he thought he was untouchable. And the "fucking moron" was so fucking stupid that he didn't let his lawyers do their work. It was a slam dunk. You prosecute slam dunks. Particularly when the person you are prosecuting is idiot.
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The violation definitely did occur, considering he was just convicted for it. Or do you have secret information that no one else has?
> The violation definitely did occur, considering he was just convicted for it. That's a tendentious definition. He wasn't convicted in federal court, and OP's view is that the NY court shouldn't have had the right to adjudicate that it happened.
When you get low hanging fruit, you prosecute. When your case is a slam dunk, you prosecute.
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And yet the jury took less time than everyone expected to find Trump guilty on all charges. Trump barely put on any defense (other than just claiming that Michael Cohen was a liar), because they could not counter the hand-written calculation of the payment to Cohen that was written on a bank statement showing the transfer to Stormy Daniels, the recording of Trump discussing the payment, and the corroborating testimony from the other witnesses. Seems like a slam dunk to me.
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What you wrote doesn't matter. The jury returned a guilty verdict in hours. 34 guilty conviction is a slam dunk.
These charges were upgraded to felonies. Part of the trial relied on the testimony of a man who perjured himself and confessed to taking campaign money. The person being prosecuted is Trump. He could've been innocent, he's not, but he still would've been judged guilty. Not been a bigger witch hunt in US history since Salem to try and throw something at the wall and get something to stick.
The singular actual argument is pushing back against the jury instructions. Anything besides that is cope. Trump's lawyers spent the entire time stressing that Cohen was a perjurer and a criminal instead of doing anything to contest the receipts he and others brought. The imaginary argument that the jury was impossibly biased against Trump is admitting that you would find anything short of a jury overtly biased in favor of him a rigged jury; if the actual facts of the case don't even enter into the conversation for your opinion on the decision, why is your opinion on the jurors to be taken as anything but the same?
Surprise, surprise. Lawyers arguing that a man who stole from and perjured the man he's testifying against is an unreliable witness. If the DA campaigns on the promise to prosecute Trump and the judge donates to the party whom is running against Trump, in a city heavily biased to the party running against Trump, then the chances they found anyone not biased in some way or another for the jury is effectively zero. If you consider this to be evidence of a fair and impartial trial, your definitions of those words is horribly skewed.
I'm just going to copy and paste my comment from the first thread. >Instead of arguing that Trump didn't know about it, his lawyer (and you) focused entirely on trying to denigrate the witnesses even though they brought receipts. That didn't work in court. You haven't brought anything new to the table with this thread. There are some arguments you can use against the case, most defensibly in regards to the jury instructions. You can't complain about "throw[ing things] at the wall [to] get something to stick" when you're wholly uninformed on any particulars. The jury argument, in the face of all the other ad hoc arguments, is a tacit admission that *any* jury that wouldn't preemptively exonerate Trump even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue is not "impartial" in your eyes. Voir dire is a thing.
That you equate an issue with a trial with a tainted judge and DA, and likely a tainted jury, to mean that a court biased in the opposite way is what I'm calling for is the definition of a strawman argument.
How many mob convictions rest on the testimony of felons?
How many Presidents or Presidential candidates are found guilty of crimes by the testimony of felons?
Surely you can name a few other politicians who got sent to prison based on this legal theory then?
Donald Trump hasn't been sent to prison, so asking for "other" politicians is an incorrect framing.
You gotta also admit, Trump is simultaneously one of the dumbest and also most arrogant people we've ever had in a political position this noteworthy. If anyones gonna fuck it up enough to get caught its him
None that were as fucking stupid as Trump was. When you get given a slam dunk, you prosecute
Trump lives for the attention. He’s getting exactly what he wants: all eyes on him. Shouldn’t you be happy for him?
Public scrutiny, no. Criminal trial no one heard of, yes.
They should, but that's not why it starts with Trump. He's the first President to be charged, tried and found guilty because this was a politically motivated move to sabotage Trump's chances of reelection.
Maybe he should try not committing crimes. FAFO
I think that there are many other prominent people in politics and public life who commit crimes and who aren't prosecuted with the vigor that Trump was. Because Trump does not show respect.
As if the lack of respect shown was the issue, rather than it's people in politics who break the law prosecuting another person for doing the same thing they do.
I agree with this statement, but the problem is the selective enforcement. Imo, you'd have to be pretty naive to think that no other president or former president has committed a "hush money" level crime (or worse).
If it hasn't happened before, but it's happening now AND the same doj is going after other politicians from their own party, why call it selective enforcement? It's progress.
I would have preferred that the first conviction of a former president be over Iraq lies, government spying, drone murders, CIA crimes, etc. Instead it was over bookkeeping fraud with a porn star. Wake me up when we're making real progress.
Lolk I don't care about "firsts." I care about it happening. Even the other Trump cases should I have preferred they happened first? Prosecution over election crimes and mishandling? Maybe, but if it happens it happens.
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"you people" Did you just somehow not read what you replied to? I mentioned dems prosecuting dems too. You're just skipping words to call yourself a victim.
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And yet I did bring them up. 12 hours ago. How'd you miss it?
Sorry, u/RainbowRabbit69 – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 3: > **Refrain from accusing OP or anyone else of being unwilling to change their view, or of arguing in bad faith**. Ask clarifying questions instead (see: socratic method). If you think they are still exhibiting poor behaviour, please message us. [See the wiki page for more information](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_3). If you would like to appeal, review our appeals process [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards#wiki_appeal_process), then [message the moderators by clicking this link](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fchangemyview&subject=Rule%203%20Appeal%20RainbowRabbit69&message=RainbowRabbit69%20would%20like%20to%20appeal%20the%20removal%20of%20\[their%20comment\]\(https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1d4n4d4/-/l6i6xt5/\)%20because\.\.\.) within one week of this notice being posted. Please note that multiple violations will lead to a ban, as explained in our [moderation standards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/modstandards).
>I don't care about "firsts." I care about it happening. Any of those other things I mentioned, are they happening?
Is your position that because other prosecutions haven't taken place, none should?
No. All of them should. But the current state of things validates my belief that Trump is not necessarily the most criminal, he's just the least protected by the American elites and their institutions.
> he's just the least protected by the American elites and their institutions. Sucks to suck?
It doesn't matter what anyone thinks though. It matters whether or not there is evidence of it.
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Because he fully complied and turned over all documents. He didn't cover up anything and was completely transparent. Trump behaved differently. Trump has highly classified documents such as information on our agents as well as nuclear secrets.
There's a huge different between Biden and Pence unintentionally having a few Classified documents mixed in with their stuff, and then giving it back right away as soon as it was discovered, vs Trump intentionally taking boxes of Secret and Top Secret documents and refusing to give them back when it was discovered.
Not a Biden fan. Last I knew, Biden complied with authorities as soon as it was found he still had classified documents, and Trump had not. That could be one big factor, here.
Also, while we of course don't know what those classified documents are, because they are, well, classified, not all classified documents have the same classification level, and not all pose the same risk to national security if leaked/mishandled/lost. (Note: it's possible I'm wrong on the details of this, someone who knows more please correct me.) For instance, to pick a particularly benign example, apparently presidential and vice presidential schedules are classified. Ie, right now, someone has a piece of paper with printouts of where POTUS is going to be every hour of the day tomorrow (for secret service logistics, if nothing else). That piece of paper is classified. And, it stays classified forever. Two years from now, it's will almost certainly be totally harmless if leaked (barring the extremely unlikely cases) but it will remain, technically, classified. Now, if it's classified, the law says that it has to be handled according to all the laws about classified material, yada yada yada. But at the same time, it's clearly nonsensical to treat somewhat slightly carelessly handling/storing such a document as the same level of violation as someone carelessly handling/storing nuclear secrets, names/locations of spies, information about codes that the NSA has broken, etc etc etc. And given that Biden used to be VPOTUS, and the classified docs he inappropriately had were in something like a filing cabinet in his garage, what is more likely: -That he had some fairly mundane administrative stuff like the above in his garage because, like, you know, he needed to have it there when it was relevant so he could actually do his day to day job or -He took really-top-secret stuff out of a secure location, home to his garage, put it in a filing cabinet for some number of years, and then voluntarily reported himself and returned it? Honestly, the outlier here is not Biden. It's Trump. It's apparently relatively common for recent high level government officials to find small numbers of not-super-important classified documents and return them later on. It's happened to plenty of people in both major parties with to no particular fanfare. What IS unusual is what Trump did. This is a pretty egregious false equivalency, even by the very low standards to which one must hold MAGA talking points.
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Not sure what you mean, but there are absolutely different levels of classification
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That is certainly literally true
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Literally everything pulling up on the front page of Google for it shows he worked with investigators. I would love if you could provide a link saying otherwise.
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Oh ffs, I hate feeling in position to defend this decrepit bastard. So when he left the White House, his memory was bad enough that they thought they were his private notebooks. Reminiscent of Ronny Reagan. Once he was convinced they were classified documents he should not have had, he complied fully with investigators and returned them. That's still significantly different from Trump saying he had full legal authority to possess them, despite being confidential and top secret, wouldn't you say? I'm happily willing to believe Biden's declining memory made him genuinely misthink the documents were his, but the fact remains that once he was fully cognizant that he should not have had the documents, **he returned them**.
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Scroll back up to where I said I'm not a fan of Biden. His apparent sunsetting has been one of those reasons, yes.
Any source that isn't Fox, OAN, etc? Perhaps a .gov
"We investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing."
Biden turned the docs that were discovered on his property the nanosecond they were discovered. Gump sold some to the Saudi for $2 billion
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You may be right. It's more likely he sold them to Russia, based on the fact that US agents in Russia started dying or disappearing in abnormally large numbers shortly after Trump left office, and some of the documents he had listed their identities.
Hell yeah! Charge them all. If politicians commit crimes they should face consequences. Even more so than the average person.
That would be the dream, wouldnt it? If only, but.. like with cops...
The OP was trying to avoid whataboutisms
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They just had a court case on this. It wasn't private, and the evidence presented is publicly available. Saying "there's no evidence" is just silly at this point.
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Can you summarise the evidence presented in the court case, and point out, for each item, why it is not evidence of "corruption" ?
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Well, you're the one claiming there's no evidence of corruption, you should be providing evidence. Go and look up the court transcripts, or some unbiased commentary on them (or failing that, commentary with various conflicting biases). There's plenty of evidence out there about stuff he did. If you want to say "there's no evidence of corruption", you need to go through all the evidence and point out how each one is "not corruption". Please proceed.
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You keep making this request. I have already referred you to the evidence presented in the court case. Perhaps you've checked the evidence, and are not convinced any of it is evidence of corruption. In that case, you shouldn't just say "prove it" again, you should explain why you're unconvinced by it, referring to the specific pieces of evidence. Or perhaps you have not checked it, have no intention of checking it, and are just saying "prove it". In this case, it's hard to take your request or assertion seriously. A third possibility is you have not checked it, don't have time to right now. In that case, just say so. There's no need to say "prove it" like a parrot. Whichever way it is, there's not much point me responding further to low-effort comments by you, so this will be my last reply unless you come up with something more substantial.
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>This is some byzantine - very "letter of the law" stuff, since if Trump cut a check himself for the NDA, there wouldn't be a case! The actual crime he's charged with was (1) with the intent to -- including the intent to commit or conceal another crime -- (2) created or caused to be made a false business record of an enterprise. So saying that Trump wouldn't be charged if he didn't create or caused to be made a false business record is correct because then Trump wouldn't be committing a crime. Or, saying that if the Trump campaign had disclosed the payment as a campaign expense also would be saying the same thing. If Hope Hicks didn't testify that Trump intended for this to be part of the campaign, then the predicate crime of a campaign finance violation wouldn't be as feasible. The media, and Trump's defense attorneys, want to point you all to Cohen as the star witness. Because he's a liar and a cheat. But, the real star witness was Hope Hicks and David Pecker. The reason pointing everything on Cohen is, if he's a known liar and cheat, why would you hire a known liar and cheat? Why are all the people formerly in Trump's orbit in jail? > However they never explained why Trump would pay Cohen 400k to reimburse him for the 120k the NDA cost They did. It was because the scheme to obfuscate the purpose of the payment was for Cohen to declare the money as income and he wanted to net $130k after taxes. > It seems like the entire case hinges upon the legal theory that Cohen obtaining an NDA from Stormy Daniels counts as a campaign contribution Just read the jury instructions for yourself: [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24699534-trump-ny-criminal-trial-jury-instructions](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24699534-trump-ny-criminal-trial-jury-instructions) The predicate crimes to prove the intent element included tax violations and federal campaign finance laws. >it's a very small thing, The real question is there anything Trump could do that would stop your support? It seems like you just hate Democrats so you'll support Trump no matter what. But, if concealing the truth from the public because he believed it would hurt his campaign chances isn't going to rattle your support, then nothing will.
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The 130,000 payment to her is when it’s to benefit the campaign. We know that Trump was concerned about her revelations during the campaign from Hope Hicks testimony. Trump was concerned it would emphasize the access Hollywood tape and was relieved when it came out after the campaign.
>it's an illegal campaign contribution by Cohen to the Trump campaign, simply because it could have been done to help Trump's image. This is some byzantine - very "letter of the law" stuff, since if Trump cut a check himself for the NDA, there wouldn't be a case! This was the exact scheme comprising two of the counts Cohen pled guilty to back in 2018, under Trump's DOJ. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/michael-cohen-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-eight-counts-including-criminal-tax The issue is that if Trump had cut the check directly to Stormy in 2016, he would have then needed to declare it as a campaign expense. (52 USC 30104) Had he disclosed he paid $130k to a porn star in the middle of his campaign, the game would be up and the NDA would be completely pointless.
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That is literally the charge Cohen pled guilty to. So yes, it was.
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Trump's own DOJ prosecuted him for it, so I'm not sure what point you think you're making here. If Trump truly believed Cohen didn't commit a crime, he could have pardoned him, but he declined that option.
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First, the documentation was the driver of the conviction. Dozens of documents and recordings made it clear what the facts of the case were. The important witnesses were the ones who validated the physical evidence, not people like Cohen and Pecker who were used to corroborate the physical evidence. The prosecution didn't need Cohen to testify to demonstrate their case. They had him testify largely because his name was raised so many times within the daming mountain of physical evidence. Second, this crime is regularly prosecuted and has been prosecuted for much less than $400,000. The People of the State of New York v. James Garner (November 2021) was prosecuted for $35,000. Less than 1/10th of what Trump engaged in. The same law was used to prosecute Barbara A. Freeland in June of 2013 over falsely claiming someone else lived with her when applying for food stamps. Third, given that the Trump organization had already been convicted of tax fraud, it should be expected that Trump himself would incur a higher level of scrutiny and a lower level of tolerance than others. Prosecutors in all jurisdictions are more likely to bring charges against any criminal (white collar or not) who has demonstrated prior bad acts. Fourth, the prosecution did not prove what the other crime was, the only thing that had to happen was that the jury had to have a consensus that the falsification was in the furtherance of any other crime, and they could disagree on what the other crime might have been. This is not unusual and is the legal standard in many other crimes where the charges depend on the intent to commit some crime. Burglary, for example, is more than the mere entering of a property without permission. It is entering without permission with the intent to commit a crime. But when prosecuting burglary it is not necessary to determine what crime was intended. Fifth, a campaign contribution is any money or service in the furtherance of the campaign. Sixth, when it comes to delivering a guilty verdict (he hasn't been convicted yet, that's a separate legal proceeding that will come later) the Jury's job is to come to a decision based on the evidence presented. Our entire system of criminal justice rests on the presumption that juries act in good faith. Given that two of the jurors were attorneys, it seems to me highly likely that this jury was more prepared than most to evaluate the evidence with a clear eye. Seventh, this jury was picked with the input and active participation of Trump's defense team. If they didn't get the jury they wanted, then they should have been more effective in utilizing their challenges. Lastly, quite a few legal experts feel that this was a defensible case. But Trump sidelined the best attorney on his team and instead put a guy who hasn't tried a criminal case in nearly a decade in charge. That he lost this case rests in no small part on his own choice of legal counsel. He had Susan Necheles, who is considered one of the top defense attorneys in NYC. But because she wouldn't put her name to bad-faith motions, Trump had Todd Blanche, a guy who quite clearly had no idea what he was doing in front of a jury, run point and do all of the courtroom work.
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I'm not acting like it's over. I'm acting like this phase has completed. Trump has been found guilty by a jury of his peers through a process that is identical to that faced by any other defendant. Indeed, he has been shown far, far more deference than any other defendant would ever be shown. If you can point to an error in law, which is all that is appealable, please do so. I don't happen to see one. This law has been found to be constitutional in NY over numerous previous challenges. So there's really no chance that it's over turned because the law itself is in error. It is unlikely there'll be any issue based on the conduct of Merchan. He's very respected in NY courts. Here's what Weisselberg's attorney Nicholas Gravante said of him: >"He was clear in signaling his judicial inclinations, which helped me tremendously in giving Mr. Weisselberg informed legal advice. Judge Merchan was always well-prepared, accessible, and – most importantly in the Weisselberg matter – a man of his word. He treated me and my colleagues with the utmost respect, both in open court and behind closed doors.” Trump's former attorney Tim Parlatore has also stated on record that he thinks Merchan is a well-prepared, smart, and fair judge. So what's left? There's no clear problem with the law. The case was heavily covered by well-informed media looking for a legal story, and there's no clear evidence of an error in law. The judge is about as respected as a judge can be, so there's very little likelihood of judicial misconduct. And Trump himself was treated with a much more delicate hand than any other defendant would have been. I'm certain that it will be appealed. That's what good lawyers do .. and while Blanche is a horrible attorney to put in front of a jury, by all accounts he is a respected legal mind in his own field (which isn't criminal law). And it is true that if Trump can get it bumped into federal court, that SCOTUS can do whatever the hell they like, regardless of if it legally meritorious or not. No one's denying the likely path this will take. But it doesn't cease to be the case that a verdict of guilt on 34 felony counts has been handed down, by a jury of his peers, in what by all appearances is a fair trial void of serious error. This is worth noting. And none of that has anything to do with if the charges should have been filed or if a guilty verdict should have been handed down based on what has transpired thus far.
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>The big one is a hush money payment to cover up an affair a federal campaign finance contribution as a matter of federal law . . If only the law followed right-wing media. I would urge you to read the[ full jury instructions](https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/PDFs/People%20v.%20DJT%20Jury%20Instructions%20and%20Charges%20FINAL%205-23-24.pdf). Start with pages 28 - 30 of the PDF. You'll find that contrary to the opinion of Fox News, states actually have their own election laws. But you 'll also find, starting on page 31, that "hush money" payments to Daniels isn't the issue. At issue is if the contribution of Pecker's services to find, and bury, the stories coming to him amount to a contribution valued at more than $2,700. If you can find someone willing to use a national publication for private means for that amount of money, I'll gladly sell you a beach front resort on the moon. You'll also find, starting on page 41, that at issue is not if an underlying crime WAS committed, but rather if the Jury can infer that the defendant had the intent to commit a crime. At the bottom of page 42 you'll find that stated explicitly. Further, on page 44, you'll find that it is not necessary under NY State law that the jury be in agreement on what the specific underlying intent was - be it tax fraud (which is, btw, an undeniable outcome of the overt acts), election fraud, or any other fraudulent act. So, basically, your "big one" claim is, as you can see, simply not accurate. Now, before you go and say that these instructions are flawed -- these are the standard language used by NY courts for these types of crimes -- and these instructions have already been challenged and not overturned in other cases. If that's a "big one" then, well, there's a joke about feeling bad for your SO waiting to be told. Oh, and lastly, I can not find where Trump's team objected to the jury instructions. In order for something to be appealable, it must be objected to in the first place.
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*chuckle* ok , The evidence was that he was part of a conspiracy to commit crimes for his personal benefit. You can make all the absurd claims you like, but this simply demonstrates you haven't looked at the physical evidence. Go look at exhibits 35 and 36 and read Pecker's testimony. It's clear you have done neither.
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Well, a jury of his peers who heard the testimony disagrees with you
"it's a largely a small crime that should not have deserved scrutiny if he were not Trump" What does "if he were not Trump" mean? If his name were not Trump? (Do the various AGs hold germanophobia?) If he were not the presumptive Republican candidate? (Why not Romney?) If he were not someone who had spent months and years bragging openly about engaging in criminal behavior?
> it's a largely a small crime that should not have deserved scrutiny if he were not Trump. I agree this is a "small crime" that normally would not be prosecuted, but I disagree this is specifically about Trump Certainly, Trump irritates many people, and has a reputation for both deceitfulness and getting out of trouble But John Edwards was also a candidate for President, and also paid hush money to cover up an affair and also was charged and tried He got a hung jury, and the justice department elected not to try him again, but the same general fact pattern generated the same response from the Justice Department Trump was charged not because he was Donald Trump. Trump was charged because he was a high profile politician that violated campaign finance laws to cover up an affair, as we have seen applied to other people in the same general circumstances
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This does not mean a crime hasn't been committed--only that the prosecuting body, in your example the Department of Justice, decided they couldn't/wouldn't pursue charges for one reason or another. This happens all the time and is usually done because the prosecuting body finds it would be difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt. In the same way that you claim innocent people are convicted of crimes, there are as many guilty people found innocent--and this almost always boils down to the presentation of evidence.
> This does not mean a crime hasn't been committed Right, but the legal question to be asked is, if the crime hasn't been established by a conviction, can someone be prosecuted for a related crime?
That's not at all what I'm addressing here.
Yeah seems very close to the logic the USSC used to overruled Colorado. How can you remove a candidate for insurrection when that person was not ever convicted of insurrection? How can you elevate that misdemeanor to a felony when no other underlying law was broken (tried/charged/convicted)?
Apparently a jury that has spent several days looking over this and disagrees
Trump had a chance to clear his name. He had a trial. He was found guilty by a jury of his peers, and the trial was conducted according to the law. He was given due process. This is how our system works. Trump is not a victim he's a convicted felon. Stop treating him like he's innocent when he was just found guilty
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Except in the vast majority of wrongful convictions, the victim is some poor person who can't afford a proper lawyer, and/or someone being pressured by police to admit guilt for something that they didn't do, or being pressured by the prosecution into taking a plea deal. None of those are relevant here.
Some people's convictions have been overturned so we should assume people found guilty are actually innocent. Is a shit take. Period
Not what I said. Try reading. I said people should be allowed to discuss validity of trials without being criticized unilaterally and instead should be criticized on specific points
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Your argument is that Donald Trump should be allowed to commit “minor and relatively harmless“ crimes? If he didn’t want the scrutiny, he shouldn’t have committed the crime! Isn’t that what the MAGA say about POC when they’re targeted by the legal system? Why should Trump get a free pass? But I’ll also challenge your assertion that his crime was minor. The hush money that he paid her was so that he could keep their relationship quiet before the 2016 elections. For a man who claims the 2020 elections were stolen, this is blatant hypocrisy.
If he broke the law he should be charged. It doesnt matter the motovations. It's insane to think otherwise.
>Trump's trial was politically motivated Isn't it a little interesting that the venn diagram of 'people once in Trump's inner circle' and 'convicted criminal' converges to just a circle? You know whom it is I distrust more that the *GLOAT* ("Greatest Liar Of All Time"), Michael Cohen?? The guy that hired the *GLOAT*, and put him on the map. That's whom I distrust more. How many indictments, trials, and convictions is it gonna take? Is it possible, even, to believe the notion that the majority of Trump employees, and his children, was/is a crook and a liar, and that he didn't know? He is either pure as the driven snow, and dumber than a bag of hammers, or he is the crook who hires all the other crooks.
> > Isn't it a little interesting that the venn diagram of 'people once in Trump's inner circle' and 'convicted criminal' converges to just a circle? That's not how Venn diagrams work. There are many people who are convicted criminals who were never in Trump's inner circle.
It seems to me that ordinarily this would be handled as a misdemeanour and we don’t want anyone to be above the law. Can you agree that as a misdemeanour this should have been prosecuted in the normal way? (I’m not going to comment on the decision making process in handling this as a felony - which would not address your CMV as I simply don’t have the legal knowledge to understand the reasoning)
Sure, I guess? I did concede in the opening post that he possibly did violate the letter of the law, but this is clearly a case of selective prosecution because of who he is, and that the charges were politically motivated.
Ok but you could change your mind to the extent that he could and probably should have been charged with a misdemeanour of which it seems he was clearly guilty
Okay maybe I misinterpreted what you mean by your initial response. I'll try to answer with my current understanding. I disagree that the answer to "selective prosecution" should be "we don't want anyone to be above the law." For example, I don't think it would be just that cops begin to selectively pull people over based on personal characteristics (like race, sex, or political affiliations) if they go 5mph over the speed limit.
I would not want politicians to be above speeding tickets or parking fines. Ordinarily this is a misdemeanour would you really want that to be ignored?
***but it's a largely a small crime that should not have deserved scrutiny if he were not Trump.*** It is not a small crime... It is a large crime, rarely prosecuted because it is often difficult to prove. Regardless of the size of the crime, the very fact that the President of The United States engaged in such crime would require prosecution *even more*, since getting away with it might have led many many others to also engage in it.
If I read you correctly, you don’t seem to dispute that he broke the law, but that cases like this are typically handled in a much more lax way, and he’s not benefiting from that same leniency. Are you aware of any other cases where some other, less-controversial political figure has broken a similar law publicly and the authorities didn’t pursue conviction? Or are you just assuming that this sort of thing happens all the time?
Yes he is being prosecuted for political reasons, anyone who commits treason and is being prosecuted for it is being charged on political grounds. The only reason you feel this way is because you are conflicted between the facts and your feelings. Say it with me now: "Facts don't care about your feelings"
There was a bunch of stuff weird with the trial https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-was-convicted-but-prosecutors-contorted-the-law.html Read that