Trump Guilty!

I already have a low opinion of the two presidential candidates, their parties and the voters who participated in the primaries without choosing a better candidate. Now I am beginning to think that the criminal justice system in New York State doesn't take the law very seriously.

Glenn Kirschner:

“And after sitting in trial for several weeks, for four, five, pushing six weeks, the jury delivered its verdict in less than 2 days of deliberation, guilty, and they said it 34 times, guilty with an exclamation point. They held Donald Trump guilty for his crimes in a New York minute, and these were crimes that didn't just involve hush money payments, they were crimes for falsifying business records to gain unfair advantage in a presidential election. Donald Trump cheated in and stole the 2016 presidential election not only by falsifying business records, to hide deeply damaging information from the American voters, in a very real sense robbing us of the full value of our vote.”

(Source: Youtube 1qE8_BNgE3w)

This is obviously about the missing element of the offence, ‘defraud’. But concealing a presidential candidate's sexual preferences and activities (such as marital and/or extramarital sex) is criminally irrelevant in the United States, at least so far.

Alan Dershowitz:

The jury is dead wrong and the judge was dead wrong and the prosecutor was dead wrong. This is still the weakest case in American history. I have been doing this for 60 years. I've never seen a weaker case. To this day it's hard for people to understand how you turn a misdemeanor which was expired under the statute of limitations into a felony based on what the defendant may have been thinking when a secretary entered a bookkeeping entry as a legal expense rather than as a reimbursement for a non disclosure agreement. This is the weakest case ever and the end result will be that you will see Republican prosecutors all over the country now starting to indict Democrats on cases like this.

(Souce: Youtube 0s0nMExVg80)


Gregory Germain from Syracuse University (Tuesday, April 16, 2024):

[…] Trump has never been charged with a crime for making the hush money payments or arranging with AMI to catch and kill stories. The underlying charges were investigated by the US Attorney General’s office, and they decided not to bring criminal charges against Trump.

There has been some suggestion that the hush money payments might somehow violate federal election laws, although I have never understood how using one’s own money to pay for the non-disclosure of embarrassing allegations would violate the election laws, which are primarily concerned with the solicitation and use of campaign contributions by third parties. Even if the government wanted to charge Trump now for violating the election law in 2016, those charges would likely be barred by the applicable statute of limitations.

The underlying case is somewhat like the criminal charges brought against former presidential candidate John Edwards, who was charged in 2011 with receiving more than $900,000 in illegal campaign contributions from friends in 2007-08 to make hush money payments to disguise his extramarital relationship and child from becoming public. The Edwards case involved money from third parties, so the election law connection makes some sense. Nevertheless, the jury found Edwards not guilty of violating the campaign finance laws, and the government decided not to further pursue the remaining charges that the jury was unable to decide. Ironically, Jack Smith, the current special prosecutor in the federal classified documents and election interference cases, had directed the Edwards prosecution.

Instead of charging Trump with an underlying crime, District Attorney Bragg is charging Trump only with covering up an underlying crime.

NY penal law 175.05 makes it a “class A misdemeanor” to falsify business records with “intent to defraud.” Falsifying business records to commit a fraud becomes a Class E felony “when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” NY Penal Law § 175.10.

District Attorney Bragg’s indictment charges Trump with 34 felony counts, each of which relates to a business record disguising a payment made to Cohen as attorney fees. The indictment alleges that Trump disguised the payments with intent to cover up another crime. But the indictment does not say what that other crime is.

There are several layers that I believe District Attorney Bragg must show to convict Trump of committing a felony under Penal Law § 175.10.

First, Bragg must show that Trump made the false business records with intent to commit “fraud,” otherwise Trump would not be guilty of a crime at all, because falsifying business records for non-fraudulent purposes is not a crime under the statute.

It is not clear who Bragg believes Trump intended to defraud by falsifying these entries. Presumably, Trump was trying to hide the allegations and/or the relationships from his family and/or the public to prevent the disclosure of embarrassing allegations or facts, but traditional “fraud” requires, among other things, showing an intent to receive financial benefits by misleading a victim, and the misrepresentations must cause an actual victim to suffer damages. Fortunately for politicians, not all lies, misrepresentations, or nondisclosures constitute “fraud.”

The District Attorney has made public statements suggesting that Trump may have been hiding the payments as attorney fees to commit tax fraud, but neither that nor any other specifics regarding an intent to commit fraud is stated in the indictment.

Second, the District Attorney must show that the reason for Trump’s false entries was to commit or cover up a separate crime, presumably separate from the fraud. If the separate crime is the election law violation, Trump would have had to know that the payment was an election law violation, and to have falsified the records to cover it up that crime. It seems to me that the election law violation would be stronger, not weaker, by making it look like Cohen was the one making the payments for Trump. Disguising the payments through Cohen made it look more like an election law violation by a supporter, not less. Or was Trump trying to disguise the payments to prevent his family or the public from knowing about the embarrassing allegations, rather than covering up an independent crime?

I believe the District Attorney must show

(1) that the payments were disguised as attorney fees to commit a fraud on someone,
(2) that the underlying payments constituted an independent crime,
(3) that Trump knew that the underlying payments constituted a crime, and
(4) that the reason he covered up the payments was to disguise that crime.

Those are going to be hard things to prove.

Judge Merchan’s summary of the case for the jury glosses over all of these difficult statutory questions. After being unable to get the parties to agree on the language of a statement to be read to the jurors to describe what the case is about, Judge Merchan decided to read the following statement to the jurors to summarize the case:

“The allegations reflect in substance, that Donald Trump falsified business records to conceal an agreement with others to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election. Specifically, it is alleged that Donald Trump made or caused false business records to hide the true nature of payments made to Michael Cohen, by characterizing them as payment for legal services rendered pursuant to a retainer agreement. The People allege that in fact, the payments were intended to reimburse Michael Cohen for money he paid to Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, in the weeks before the presidential election to prevent her from publicly revealing details about a past sexual encounter with Donald Trump.”

Judge Juan Merchan’s statement fails to explain when it is a crime to “unlawfully influence” an election. Obviously, all politicians attempt to influence voters to vote for them. Politicians regularly misstate facts and fail to disclose facts during their campaign. The law has never allowed members of the public or the government to bring claims for fraud against politicians who make misleading or even downright false statements; indeed our laws broadly protect campaign speech under the First Amendment.

Neither the Court nor the District Attorney has made it clear who was defrauded, what the independent crime is, or when an attempt to influence voters becomes “unlawful” and constitutes an independent crime.

There is also a question regarding the statute of limitations applicable to these claims. The statute of limitations on a misdemeanor in New York is 2 years, and would have expired long ago. NY Crim Proc 30.10(2)(c). The statute of limitations on “other felonies” is 5 years. NY Crim Proc. § 30.10(2)(b). The acts occurred in 2016 and 2017, and the District Attorney delayed filing the charges for several years. The District Attorney has argued that the statutes of limitations were tolled during COVID, or that they were extended when Trump left the state. These issues need to be addressed by the court clearly.

So while there is very strong evidence that Trump created false business record entries to cover up his hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the District Attorney needs to show multiple difficult elements to establish that the entries were made to commit “fraud,” and for the purpose of covering up a separate crime.

Finally, what is the penalty if Trump is convicted of this Class E felony? He would be subject to a fine of up to $5,000 under NY Pen § 80.1. If he received some financial benefit, he might have to disgorge three times the amount of the benefit. It is difficult to see how these minor penalties would justify such an expensive investigation and prosecution.

So the goal must be to impose imprisonment. For a first time offender, the court could impose a prison term of up to one year under NY Penal law § 70(4), but it would be very unusual to impose prison time for a first time Class E felony, especially where no victim suffered financial harm.

This case is an important test for our legal system. District Attorney Alvin Bragg was under intense political pressure to bring these charges, even after his predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., decided not to do so. Trump is very unpopular in Manhattan, and has acted boorishly and foolishly in verbally attacking parties, judges, court clerks and their families. But the law must be applied fairly and evenly to all parties, even those who are locally unpopular, and it is the District Attorney’s responsibility to assure equal treatment under the law.

I believe that the use of our legal system for political purposes will backfire with the electorate. Every time a politically motivated case is decided, the polls show Trump becoming more popular. Alvin Bragg sits in the chair once occupied by one of my legal heroes, Robert Morgenthau, who refused to use his office for political purposes, and had the courage to admit when his office made mistakes. Bragg has a lot to live up to. This old case, with all of its legal difficulties, should not have been brought.

Source: PITCH: Legal Analysis of Hush Money Trial facing former President Donald Trump


Guha Krishnamurthi: Charting the Indicted Crimes in Trump’s New York Criminal Trial
Charting the Indicted Crimes in Trump’s New York Criminal Trial by Guha Krishnamurthi :: SSRN


Indictment: https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000187-4d9a-dc00-a3d7-4d9f97b40000

Jury Instruction: https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/PDFs/People v. DJT Jury Instructions and Charges FINAL 5-23-24.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormy_Daniels–Donald_Trump_scandal
Reactions to the prosecution of Donald Trump in New York - Wikipedia

Alvin Bragg - Wikipedia
https://www.manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Day-One-Letter-Policies-1.03.2022.pdf
About — Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg

Juan Merchan - Wikipedia

Brooks Holland and Steven Zeidman:
Progressive prosecutors or zealous defenders, from coast-to-coast
https://www.law.georgetown.edu/amer...s/15/2023/05/60-4_progressive-prosecutors.pdf

 

Thank you.

 

In regards to that MSNBC clip above----I can't understand why someone would let that bimbo comment on what should really be a simple thing to understand. Are we all children that can't follow what is really fairly simple instructions. Thank god that the jury was a bunch of adults and they apparently had no problem following instructions.

Suddenly every MAGA Republican is a legal scholar, and they all seem confused, and are completely misinformed about why and how Trump was convicted. One of the crimes that made the election interference charge stick, was something that Cohen already plead guilty to!

 

Nothing money can't buy. If America can't even form a decent Banana Republic, and the Pentagon has sold our national security to China, we can sell them our judicial system too.

 

Since the verdict I've seen various people asking what was the crime Trump was found guilty of?

Like Alan Dershowitz:

https://youtube.com/shorts/lR1-Mnv93gg?si=ADuVrvNzsDkGcFGQ

 

Donald Duck was found guilty of not having enough money to buy the Supreme Court and, now, we'll see if MAGA decides to blow up the Supremes. Cheap is good, some of my best friends are cheap while, by all accounts, our government and judicial system are way overpriced.

 

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The Supreme Court told congress to write a new constitution, or they would write it themselves. That's not weaponization, its called legalized theft. If they were all Italians, we would call them Mafia Dons.

 

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Which Democrats are afraid of retaliation? Who on the left is afraid of retaliation?

I mean certainly Trump vows to get revenge if he comes to power, but that could only happen if he is able to CORRUPT the legal and judicial system, but I don't know if he would be able to ultimately achieve that, even if he does take over the DOJ and act out all that the GOP plans according to Project 2025. The problem is that the whole system is filled with judges and lawyers who sincerely believe in the system and work to keep its integrity. When people talk about racism it is because they recognize systemic racism, or they are unfortunate victims of it. That is because, the system is not weaponized by partisan interests, rather it is built on over 250 years of white dominance. And while we have made moves to fix this since the 1960's, the fact that it is not simple racism, where we are dealing with a group of racists, but is literally systemic racism, means that fixing that takes a lot of dredging up of crap from the bowels of the system. It means that the validation of the racism within the system, runs so deep that it is built into everything from religion to the courts, and so on, in ways that may seem common sense, or that we haven't even figured out or recognized yet.

To think that our legal system has been weaponized, is to be brainwashed by the workings of a rotted out egotistical mind that believes that the President should be able to do anything he wants, even send out Seal Team 6 to assassinate his rivals, and that there should be no recourse against him for doing so.

Carl Jung, in his book, The Undiscovered Self, written in the 1950's, warned us that if someone with psychotic or mentally deranged tendencies and a corrupted moral compass were to gain power over a relatively small percentage of the population whose, "mental state is that of a collectively excited group ruled by affective judgements and wish fantasies [that are] in a state of 'collective possession'..." Then, "Their chimerical ideas, upborne by fanatical resentment, appeal to the collective irrationality and find fruitful soil there, for they express all those motives and resentments which lurk in more normal people under the cloak of reason and insight. They are... dangerous as sources of infection." In other words, we are dealing with a mass psychosis, which, if it achieves enough power, would force this nation into the arms of totalitarianism.

Conspiracy theories that express the paranoid delusion that everyone from the reporters and journalists, the doctors and medical professionals, the government, the courts, the other side (the Left in this case), scientists, and whoever else you want to add in, are against you and all you stand for, are, once they have moved beyond a few crazy people with tin foil on their heads, very dangerous.

Democrats are not afraid of retribution. They are rejoicing in the fact that no one is above the law! But they are also dumbfounded by the fact that so many Americans have fallen victim to the corruption of their own moral compasses as to say, 'this misogynistic, self-centered, power hungry criminal felon is the man I want to be president of my country.'

 

I'm referring to your statement the courts are being weaponized. Between both democrats and republicans systematically shredding our constitution, for over twenty years, there is no way to weaponize our courts any further, because we no longer have a constitution, and money is doing all the driving. Donald Duck should been thrown in prison decades ago, and if the courts can't even manage to put a guy with no less than 90 felonies in jail, you need to worry about them weaponizing the mass media, because you no longer have a judicial system.

Right now, everyone is using Reuters, because they have no choice, and the entire system is being weaponized using AI.

If you want to complain about no longer having a constitution, you'll have to write a letter to the UN, who will tell you there's nobody in charge around here, and they were hoping you could help.