Posted on 05/31/2024 8:38:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
OK, serious answers only please...
I'm trying to understand exactly what felony Trump was convicted of in yesterday's verdict.
Here's what I understand (please correct me if I am wrong or inaccurate in any of my interpretation) :
1) Trump was accused of a sexual affair with Porn Star Stormy Daniels almost 20 years ago.
2) 9 years later, as Trump was planning to ran for President, he had Stormy Daniels sign a non-disclosuer agreement in exchange for paying her $130,000 for her silence.
3) Trump is being charged with falsifying business records in relation to this particular payment.
Now, here's what I'm trying to understand ( but still don't ) -- exactly what felony did Trump commit?
#1 Might be morally wrong ( assuming it were true ), but it is NOT illegal between consenting adults.
#2 Isn't illegal either. Non-disclosure agreements are routinely being signed all the time, even with regards to something similar to what Trump allegedly did.
That brings us to Number 3: Falsifying business records.
What exactly did Trump falsify?
How should the payment to Stormy Daniels be declared in order to make it NOT illegal?
Can anyone enlighten me on this? Thanks.
Again, if you don't know, please don't post.
I can understand sarcasm, but the purpose of my opening this thread is to understand what exactly made his act a felony.
“In response, the NYS, post-indictment, extended the Statute of Limitations to make the indictment stick. My argument is that once the SoL has expired you cannot Constitutionally resurrect the dead crime, it is erased.”
That’s not what happened though. There was an SOL extension pursuant to covid from 2020-2021. The thing is the legislature had (at some point) passed a statute that allowed the governor to toll statutes of limitation in cases of national emergency (my paraphrase). So the SOL extension was made by executive order, not by legislative act. It was upheld for civil cases, but I’m not sure extending SOLs in such a manner passes constitutional due process muster for criminal cases.
But you would otherwise be correct, while the legislature can resurrect civil SOLs and extend criminal SOLs, it cannot resurrect dead criminal SOLs.
And let’s not forget the “underlying crime” as you put it was a misdemeanor NY law. A crime for which the Statute of Limitations had expired.
Very correct. So how did they resurrect this dead crime?
By unilaterally, for the sole purpose of getting Trump. redefined misdemeanor crimes as felonies. After the fact. No limitations on felonies, so Bragg went ape-bleep.
“Why am I convicted of 34 felonies?”
Because you were speeding.
“But that’s not a felony!’
In your case... It is now.
The payment wasn’t illegal, but the shell company created to hide the payments was the part that got Trump in trouble.
Don’t shoot the messenger- that how I understood it.
the one of running for President against an abused elder corpse.
RE: the shell company created to hide the payments was the part that got Trump in trouble
1. Is it illegal to create a shell company to hide a payment?
2. Was Trump aware of the creation of the shell company? In other words, did Trump direct Cohen to create the company, or did Cohen do it on his own?
Hope Hicks put Trump and Cohen in the room together when the plan was concocted. I’ve been saying all along that she was the one who sunk Trump’s defense. She was the “star witness,” not Cohen.
In retrospect, Trump probably should have testified. I think they were going to convict him regardless.
Hope Hicks put Trump and Cohen in the room together when the plan was concocted. I’ve been saying all along that she was the one who sunk Trump’s defense. She was the “star witness,” not Cohen.
In retrospect, Trump probably should have testified. I think they were going to convict him regardless.
Eventually we’ll all get that knock on the door.
* Payment for a story event.
******* VS. ******
* A Bribe
Payment recorded: objective
Event happened: Semi-objective
Interpretations: based upon “evidence”
Interpretation of evidence/lack of evidence: Subjective
Conclusion: Subjective. NO CONCRETE INTERPRETATIVE EVIDENCE.
simple for the crime of winning in 2016 and beating hiterly !
RE: Hope Hicks put Trump and Cohen in the room together when the plan was concocted.
I only know her when she served as White House Communications Director under President Trump, her role was primarily focused on public relations and communications strategy. This is the first time I’ve heard of Hicks facilitating the plan to form the shell company.
I do know that Michael Cohen formed a shell company called Essential Consultants LLC to facilitate the payments to Stormy Daniels. The purpose of the shell company was to obscure the nature of the payments and maintain secrecy around the transaction.
It is unclear whether President Trump was aware of the specific shell company, Essential Consultants LLC, used by Michael Cohen to facilitate the hush payments to Stormy Daniels. However, Trump did acknowledge reimbursing Cohen for the payments. That’s all.
The formation of the shell company was orchestrated by Michael Cohen, who was acting independently in his capacity as Trump’s personal attorney.
What is your source regarding Hope Hicks being part of this plan and the meeting she supposedly arranged to discuss it?
A link or two will be useful and helpful.
They were misdemeanors - UNLESS used in conjunction with another crime. It took another crime to raise it to a felony. That other crime? They had a choice of three.
If he wasn’t guilty of one of the other three, then he could NOT have been found guilty. They did not formally CHARGE him with the other crimes, but they could not find him guilty UNLESS he was ALSO guilty of them.
Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree is a felony, period. It only requires intent to commit or conceal a crime, not a conviction or guilt.
The judge laying out the three possible crimes for the jurors, was in my opinion, leading the jurors by the nose to accept Trump WAS committing or concealing a crime, based on the fact that Cohen pled GUILTY to FECA violations, and testimony that as Trump’s lawyer, he did it on his behalf and with his knowledge. Barring a former Commissioner of the FEC from testifying that Trump’s actions were NOT a crime under FECA sealed the deal.
That article is behind a paywall. Is there another link?
He wrote:
This trial was without precedent.
Never in American history has anyone ever been prosecuted for – as Trump's defense argued was the case – erroneous bookkeeping made by a company underling who failed to disclose the payment of 'hush money'.
What there is plenty of precedent for is... the payment of hush money.
Since the 1790s when Alexander Hamilton paid to keep his adulterous affair secret, many such payments have been made by politicians across the spectrum.
Then, Dershowitz quoted the head of the KGB under Stalin: 'Show me the man, and I will find you the crime.'
Dershowitz compared DA Bragg:
. . . though DA Bragg tried desperately to find a crime with which to charge Trump, he failed to find one, as did his predecessor Cyrus Vance. So Bragg went a dangerous step further than Stalin ever did: he made up a crime. He found a misdemeanor that was past the statute of limitations — making a false bookkeeping entry on a corporate form — and magically converted it to a felony that was within the limitation period by alleging that the false entry was intended to cover up another crime.Throughout the trial, many people inferred that crime to be an alleged attempt at election interference. But Bragg never actually explicitly stated that.
In fact, the prosecution didn't tell the court what Trump's other 'crimes' were until their closing arguments on Wednesday – by which point the defense had no opportunity to respond. And even then, the supposed crimes outlined were vague.
That article is posted on this FR thread.
It can’t be explained. Show Trials are like that. Made up charges, made up evidence a preplanned outcome. It is the way it works.
This will be overturned on many grounds like:
Michael Cohen who has in the past been convicted of lying under oath and said he was out to get Trump admitted to paying Stormy Daniels off using his own money. He then entered this as a campaign expense and stole a total of $60,000 from Trump. He admits this in court when he testified.
His MAGA organization should sell T-Shirts with no images but just the words “I’m a proud Felon too”.
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