Posted on 04/23/2024 9:06:34 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The first witness in Donald Trump's trial for alleged "criminal" bookkeeping errors came with National Enquirer-worthy titillations about what a hot commodity the former president was back in the day. Prosecutors thought they'd burst out of the gate with a little razzle-dazzle and T&A, hoping that jurors would believe the witness had anything to do with the actual charges in the case.
This is because — spoiler alert — the prosecutors' actual case is a "confusing" distraction. It's the "Seinfeld" of legal cases.
But since a Manhattan jury will likely convict the former president because Orange Man Bad, here's what happened in court with the opening witness on truncated court sessions Monday and Tuesday.
David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified that he worked with Trump's lawyer to kill stories that hurt Trump's reputation or would be hurtful to his wife and family. This is the so-called catch-and-kill scheme, wherein sources would approach the Enquirer with an unflattering story about Trump (this applies to Hollywood stars and big shots), offer money to the people telling it, and then make the story disappear.
And it went something like this:
All of the above is legal.
Reminder: A 2018 Letter from Michael Cohen’s lawyer to the FEC admits Cohen used his own personal funds to pay Stormy Daniels.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
That may well be true - I don’t know - but it’s not going to help with the current case Trump is fighting.
The parties to any agreement like this don’t have to complete the crime they’re planning to commit. Most conspiracy cases don’t involve completed crimes.
Trump’s intent is the crux of the case, and that’s why Cohen and Pecker are such a threat. These are also the same facts that Cohen was already convicted for, and for which he went to prison. Trump would have been charged then, if not for the fact he was holding the office at the time.
Trump didn’t pay it out of campaign funds and he didn’t claim it as campaign-related. What Trump did was inwardly consistent and lawful, which paying from the campaign wouldn’t have been. If Cohen was suggesting they pay for it out of campaign funds then he gave bad advice and it’s a good thing Trump never went with that plan.
Making or contemplating stupid suggestions doesn’t mean you planned to commit a crime.
Seems to me that Bragg is upset because Trump DIDN’T commit the crime of using campaign funds for personal expenses. He used his own personal money for personal expenses.
Which is probably why Trump didn’t list it as a campaign expense.He listed it as what it really was. No election law broken. No filings fabricated.
RE: None of that would matter at all if Cohen and Pecker had not claimed the “scheme” was to be paid as a “business expense” from the campaign.
Why didn’t the FEC pounce on this when they had the chance? It’s their jurisdiction.
RE: That was at the tail end of the link from Reuters that was posted to show Trump paid Cohen for something.
Of course he would pay Cohen for something, he’s the lawyer after all. You don’t expect Cohen to work for free. But what is that something? And why is it illegal?
It may help a little bit. Catch and kill was not invented by Trump or Cohen. Has beeen going on for 100 years or more. Hollywood did it to protect their stars from exposure as homosexuals and other proclivities. Rich men pay off nuisance suits, be they true or false regardless of their public profile. The media and the intel community literally tried to bury the laptop story on the eve of the election. The news and media decides what to report on and what not to report on every day, and the reasons for that can be direct payment, indirect payment, quid pro quo, favoritism, and “election interference” impulses by media partisans among other reasons.
Point is, there’s nothing new here, except the felony prosecution for it. If it’s sold to the jury correctly it might help.
Because, as I understand the FEC and DOJ, Trump was a sitting president when it landed with them. As such, the DOJ’s “guidance” was that he could not be charged while in the office of president.
The FEC also had only 4 members at the time: 2 Republicans and 2 Democrats. The Commission split 2 to 2, reportedly with Republicans against taking action against Trump, and Democrats voting to take the same enforcement actions Pecker and Cohen then faced. It takes a majority of the FEC Board to pursue an action.
At https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/21/here-are-the-charges-michael-cohen-admitted-to-in-federal-court.html it lists what Cohen was charged with after his plea deal. One dealt with the “hush money”, and at https://www.justsecurity.org/85761/timeline-trump-hush-money-trial/ it says about that:
“This payment amounted to a contribution to the Trump campaign “in excess of the limits of the Election Act, which aggregated $25,000 and more in calendar year 2016” since it was made “in cooperation, consultation, and concert with, and at the request and suggestion of one or more members of the campaign…”
That seems like a bunch of baloney to me. According to that same page, Trump agreed he would pay Cohen back. What campaign contribution gets paid back? This was a loan, not a campaign contribution. Maybe the act of doing the money transfer was a contribution, but who would charge over $25,000 for just doing the footwork of having a wire transfer done?
Seems to me that the plea deal, which involved Cohen turning on Trump (https://apnews.com/article/north-america-donald-trump-us-news-ap-top-news-michael-cohen-74aaf72511d64fceb1d64529207bde64), was made so that the feds could eventually try to get Trump for “trying to influence the election”. What law says a candidate can’t try to influence an election? This is such a crock of baloney it makes my eyes bleed.
None of this stuff is criminal. What IS criminal is the perjury that Cohen committed. And subornation of perjury if the DOJ offered Cohen a plea deal in return for lying about Trump.
I don’t know what they have for documentation of what they claim as “facts” - whether they’re going by what Cohen said after he changed his mind. I would hope not ONLY that because unless there is other evidence, we don’t know which account by Cohen was the perjurious one. If what Cohen claimed after his plea deal was accurate, then he should never have been charged with donating too much, since all he donated - at most - was the time to do the money transfer, since Trump reimbursed him from Trump’s personal money.
Good questions.
It’s been 3 years since Trump has been President, and they never did bring charges against him.
No matter how you slice it, Bragg’s claim that Truump “falsifying records” (actually just not claiming campaign expenses for personal out-of-pocket expenses) was in order to commit a crime is just his opinion, not anything legal. It’s sort of like CO trying to take Trump off the ballot because in their uninformed, unadjudicated opinion Trump was guilty of something he’d never even been legally accused of. Even if everything else Bragg said was true, it’s not a crime to try to influence an election, it’s not a crime to pay somebody to shut up, and it’s not a crime to pay legal expenses out of your own pocket and then not claim it as a campaign expense.
So what is Bragg even claiming is the election crime Trump was trying to commit? What is the statute he claims Trump intended to break?
One last thing tonight.
Trump’s filings are only false if he used campaign funds to reimburse Cohen and failed to report that.
What is Bragg’s evidence that the campaign reimbursed Cohen, when we’ve got a personal check from Trump to Cohen?
All this stuff is just blather. It is not criminal to pay hush money, it is not criminal to try to influence an election, it is not criminal to work with other people to keep your family from being lied about, it is not criminal to pay your lawyer with your own money, and it’s not criminal to leave personal expenses off of your campaign expenditure filings.
Bragg has NOTHING. This case should never have been brought. There aren’t even any misdemeanors, much less felonies.
This is absolutely a witch hunt. Third world banana republic garbage.
BTTT
Maybe these oh-so brilliant prosecutors should go sit at the kiddie table and let some adults take care of things?
If anything they are keeping Trump OFF the campaign trail
Either Cohen is lying?hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha,,that’s a real knee slapper hahahahahahah.
Trump doesn’t have to campaign. He could hide in his basement and still lose.
Remember Bill Clinton’s “Bimbo Eruption” squad headed up by Hillary and George Stephanopoulos? And remember when he paid Paula Jones $850,000 to shut up and go away? Was he charged with anything? I didn’t think so.
That’s because tptb are trying to make a persecution sound like a legal prosecution.
That letter is specific to certain accounts funds. It does NOT mention a personal Trump account....and I’m sure there are many. Hell...I have Visa, Mastercard, checking, savings accounts.
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