RE: the money being paid to the lawyer was a “legal expense”. The state of New York says that’s a felony.
The lawyer, I assume was Michael Cohen. So, if it isn’t a legal expense, what should it be considered in order for it NOT to be illegal? Should it have been written down as “Payment for Non-Disclosure agreement”? And if it were written down this way, it would then be legal?
as I understand it:
According to Jefff McConney, Trump controller, Cohen submitted a bill in the form of a bank statement for $130K and also claimed $50K for ‘Red Finch - tech support’. ($30K of this ended up being stolen by Cohen). This was doubled to account for any taxes owed (so add $180K to $180K) and then another $60K was added as a (annual) ‘bonus’ to Cohen (the bonus Cohen claimed was too low so as to justify stealing the $30K). This equals $420K, These numbers were noted on the submitted bank statement by former CFO Weisselberg. The $420k was divided into (12) $35K payments. The payments were drawn on Trump’s personal checking account, since Cohen was Trump’s personal lawyer not corporate lawyer. Cohen said he did no legal work for Trump but assuming that at least part of the $180K ‘for taxes’ wasn’t all going to ‘taxes’, any remainder would have been add’l income to Cohen as a retainer. As I understand it, a lawyer doesn’t have to do any work to be on retainer, just available to do so if requested. Also, one would think that if Cohen didn’t do any work for Trump and wasn’t available to be ‘retained’ why would Cohen whine about being due a ‘bonus’ ???
After AMI refused to buy Daniel’s story, Cohen admits he folded to pressure from Daniel’s lawyer and went behind Trump’s back to construct the NDA with Daniels in Oct 2016, against Trump’s advice he quash the extortion attempt. Cohen said he did this on his own to ‘protect Melania’. In Jan 2017, Cohen submitted the paperwork to be reimbursed to Weisselburg. In Jan 2018, the Wall Street Journal broke Daniel’s story in violation of the NDA. May 3, 2018, Trump tweeted that Cohen had drawn up a NDA “o stop the false and extortionist accusations” and Daniels was in violation of that NDA.
Which brings us to the kangaroo court: The best I can figure is, Bragg’s entire case hinged on two points:
1) Trump mmust have committed fraud because Trump should have broken out the sums as, NDA, bonus, tech support, tax reimbursement, extra for any future work i.e., retainer, instead of the simplified or umbrella version of ‘retainer’ entered in the check register. Or maybe cut separate checks for each of the above..He also argued that there was no ‘retainer agreement’ with Cohen.
2) Bragg further claimed that Trump must have interferred in the election because an NDA was drawn up by Cohen to stop ‘extortion.’ He brought in Daniels who insisted her story was true. Bragg’s position was if the public knew about a supposed 10-yr old fling, people would not vote for Trump . This is a complete misread of the voters who were well-aware Trump had a history as a playboy, didn’t believe Daniels, and that it wouldn’t affect their vote. In any case, it wouldn’t affect NY vote, since Trump had no expectations of capturing the state’s votes. This is where Bragg gets the election interference part, even tho NDA’s are not illegal.
Now, how 12 checks, a GLOAT and an extortionist hooker morphed into 34 charges, is the mystery of the hour.