RE: He reimbursed Cohen and labelled the payment as “legal fees” instead of campaign contributions.
How is an NDA with Stormy Daniels not a legal fee? Didn’t Michael Cohen prepare the NDA for her to sign?
My understanding is non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are legal documents that are widely used in various industries and situations. They are designed to protect confidential information ( yes, even Trump’s affair ) and trade secrets. NDAs are enforceable in court, and parties who breach the terms of the agreement can face legal consequences, including financial penalties or injunctions to prevent disclosure of the protected information.
So, if they are legal documents, how is the payment not a legal fee?
RE: This false business record keeping was done in order to conceal or further the crime of... something.
We can’t just stop there — what is that something?
“How is an NDA with Stormy Daniels not a legal fee? Didn’t Michael Cohen prepare the NDA for her to sign?”
Exactly. You and I and common sense would think so, but Bragg argued that it wasn’t a legal fee, it was a campaign contribution because Trump paid it to help out his campaign to become president.
Of course, the feds look at it and didn’t prosecute anything about it. And Trump tried to call an expert witness to testify that it wasn’t a campaign contribution, and the judge wouldn’t allow him to testify.
“what is that something?”
Bragg argued that it was either 1) violation of campaign financing laws, 2) creating other false business records, and/or 3) tax evasion.
Of course, he never (to my knowledge) offered any evidence as to how it was any of the above. And the jury wasn’t asked with crime or crimes they believe it was, nor did all the members of the jury have to believe it was the same crime - just that there was A crime. The verdict form didn’t ask the jury to identify which they found.
Never mind how the alleged false business records in 2017 had anything to do with the 2016 campaign unless you have a time machine.
As an aside, as was pointed out when these charges were filed, even if Trump DID hypothetically identify the payment as a campaign expense, all Bragg would have had to do was to change about five words in the indictment and prosecute him for falsely calling them campaign expenditures instead of legal fees.