Bragg’s statement said something like “call hush money a legal expense in order to steal the 2016 election.”
So, I imagine it is controlling negative info that could cause you to lose.
No one has ever done that before in the history of our nation. /sarc
Job applicant to interviewer: “Well, sir, if you haven’t noticed it, you need to know that I failed my high school history class.”
He was convicted of calling his payments “legal fees” when they were not. So, these would have been used in his tax records and his election reports.
So, every time he entered those payments as “retainers” he “committed a crime.”
Do I agree with it as a felony? Do I think he “directed” someone to code these payments that way? Nope. But that isn’t what you asked.
Michael Cohen, his attorney, outlaid the money to Stormy Daniels. He reimbursed Cohen and labelled the payment as “legal fees” instead of campaign contributions. This false business record keeping was done in order to conceal or further the crime of... something.
What was done is only a "crime" because in some 5 layer twisted logic it was made into one. Reminds me of "show me the man and I'll find the crime" or spinator Meacham in "Shooter" saying, "The truth is what I say it is.". Both of the sobs that said these things got not just what they deserved but what needed to happen to them and anyone else who steps outside the boundaries of civil society and order that will not be controlled.
To me, even worse and more convoluted was the other Trump conviction about the loan applications. We seem to have let that one slide into the past already. What happened to the trucker's boycott of NY?
I'm ready to move on from talk. If this travesty is not stopped and with prejudice we will have constables and justices of the peace controlling national affairs.
We have now seen, probably again, the indictment of a ham sandwich. Twice or more for one man. What next? What happens when they jail Trump? They will you know. They will because they can and they will to prove they can't be intimidated.
I just hope and pray they have backed themselves into a corner they can never get out of.
The basis of this phony case is that the $130,000 dollars to Stormy was a campaign contribution according to Bragg. It was not. Using Alvin Bragg’s logic it should have been from campaign funds. This would be illegal and the diversion of campaign funds for private use. The FEC would have gone after Trump quite rightly for this if he had done this.
There was no crime.
And the people that did this, all of them, should have a price on their head.
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.
* 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 !
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.
The so-called state felonies arouse out of an at (in a Federal Election Commission manner who has sole responsibility for prosecution). The fEC found no crime to prosecute.
Bragg then concocted a money trail of false business transactions re the payment as it wound its way from Cohen taking it on himself to pay and his eventual reimbursement within Trumps business that Bragg asserted were false and felonious. Given Cohen’s past lies and performance there is no indication he embarked into a conspiracy with Trump to bury the payment. So in his long line of payment disguise (34 times) Cohen worked his magic. TRump was busy campaigning and transitioning; Cohen was busing doing what scumbag lawyers do.
A billionaire about to be President not micromanaging a basic crook (and later fully cooperating with Bragg.) coupled with an avidly agreeable Trump hater judge was all that was needed to abuse the law and convict him.