Posted on 06/07/2024 9:45:04 AM PDT by bitt
Yale Law Professor Jed Rubenfeld, a prominent legal scholar known for his work in constitutional law, privacy rights, and the First Amendment, has provided a legal roadmap for Donald Trump’s attorneys to potentially overturn the former president’s ‘guilty’ verdict before the crucial 2024 election.
In a recent video, Rubenfeld begins by explaining the complexities of the case.
“Nobody wants it to be the rule in America that if you’re a former president or if you’re running for President, you become a target for criminal prosecution,” said Rubenfeld.
Trump was found guilty of allegedly falsifying business records to conceal a second crime. The crux of the prosecution’s argument was that Trump’s reimbursements to his lawyer, Michael Cohen, a convicted perjurer, for hush money paid to Stormy Daniels were falsely recorded as legal expenses. The prosecution argued that these payments were campaign expenses meant to influence the 2016 election.
For the record, Jed Rudenfeld represented Robert Kennedy’s Children Health Defense, The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft, and several other independent voices in an antitrust lawsuit against members of the Trusted News Initiative back in 2023.
Rubenfeld points out that while paying hush money is not illegal, falsifying business records is. The complication arises from the necessity of proving a second crime that Trump was allegedly trying to conceal.
The prosecution suggested multiple theories, including New York tax violations and federal campaign finance violations, but did not definitively commit to any single one during the indictment.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
“According to NY law, they don’t have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the other crime happened. Using Cohen’s, Pecker’s and some other testimony, they were able to convince the jury the other crime likely happened”
What crime? Still waiting for the statement of particulars. Was there juror unanimity?
What a circumstance to find yourself convicted of 34 felonies, but have no idea what they are. Seems almost unconstitutional...
If they can't prove a second crime, then there is no first crime of falsifying a business record. Without a second crime, the business records were entered appropriately.
That's why Bragg and Merchan are desperate to find a second crime at any cost.
-PJ
It was the testimony of a liar, a prostitute and a Pecker that convinced the jury.
In order for you to find the defendant guilty of this crime, the
People are required to prove, from all of the evidence in the case,
beyond a reasonable doubt, each of the following two elements:
1. That on or about (date) , in the county of (county) ,
the defendant, (defendant’s name),
Select appropriate alternative:
made or caused a false entry in the business records
of an enterprise; or
altered, erased, obliterated, deleted, removed or
destroyed a true entry in the business records of an
enterprise; or
omitted to make a true entry in the business records
of an enterprise in violation of a duty to do so which
the defendant knew to be imposed upon him/her by
law or by the nature of his/her position; or
prevented the making of a true entry or caused the
omission thereof in the business records of an
enterprise; and,
2. That the defendant did so with intent to defraud that
included an intent to commit another crime or to aid or
conceal the commission thereof.
https://nycourts.gov/judges/cji/2-PenalLaw/175/175.10.pdf
Origin
late Middle English: from Old French defrauder or Latin defraudare, from de- ‘from’ + fraudare ‘to cheat’ (from fraus, fraud- ‘fraud’).
To defraud broadly means trick or deceive someone at the expense of another for personal gain.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defraud
Defraud
To make a Misrepresentation of an existing material fact, knowing it to be false or making it recklessly without regard to whether it is true or false, intending for someone to rely on the misrepresentation and under circumstances in which such person does rely on it to his or her damage.
https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/defraud
This Yale legal expert uses excellent legal arguments to achieve a federally adjudicated 'temporary restraining order' against Judge Marchan to delay his declaration approving the jury decision and specifying an appropriate sentence.
The end effect is the same as I argued: what I called an order to 'Stay' declaration of 'guilty' and subsequent sentencing.
One thing is for sure: if the federal courts reject the emergency appeal of this case, honest elections will no longer be necessary and likely will no longer be possible. A citizen's Constitutional right to vote will be forever negated! (...by the good ol' slave party of 1850 that caused a 'civil war' then!)
“What crime? Still waiting for the statement of particulars. Was there juror unanimity?”
The jury voted 12-0 on commiting 34 felonies so there was unanimity.
“and they said he falsified the records to conceal a separate violation of a New York election law that prohibits conspiring to promote a political candidate “
https://politico.com/interactives/2023/trump-criminal-investigations-cases-tracker-list/
“It was the testimony of a liar, a prostitute and a Pecker that convinced the jury.”
Jury believed them more then they did the witnesses Trump’s defense team called.
Was Trumps legal team allowed to call witnesses?
“On the heels of the publicity over the hush-money scandal, Avenatti helped Daniels ink a $800,000 book deal.”
Sort of in-line with the $1 million in liquidated damages Cohen specified in the non-disclosure agreement.
“Stormy Daniels says she was not paid to appear or participate in her documentary.”
“But the production company paid her $125,000 for the licensing rights to her material and book. She said she’s been paid $100,000 so far.”
same link
“Trump attorney Susan Necheles re-asks the question confirming Stormy Daniels owes the former president about $560,000 in legal fees.”
same link
A cash settlement in return for an NDA is a legal expense and not illegal as long as the NDA is not to prevent disclosure of illegal activity or evidence of such.
Corporations frequently use NDAs in settlement of nuisance suits.
$35,000 x 4
for Cohen’s work + reimbursement of the $130,000 ‘consideration’ for Daniel’s signing a NDA legal document
(some of which her lawyer took as his legal fees)
If any reasonable, honest person (not a lawyer or certified professional accountant) could consider the $35,000 payments as “legal expenses” then I fail to see the problem in using that term.
“A cash settlement in return for an NDA is a legal expense and not illegal as long as the NDA is not to prevent disclosure of illegal activity or evidence of such.”
Your point?
This case is so egregious that the US Supreme Court will almost certainly hope that a New York appellate court will toss the verdicts.
“The FEC concluded that the Clinton campaign and DNC misreported the money that funded the dossier, masking it as “legal services” and “legal and compliance consulting” instead of opposition research.”
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/30/politics/clinton-dnc-steele-dossier-fusion-gps/index.html
Simmons plays a retired admiral who is called to the Enterprise to investigate a suspected sabotage. She begins reliving her greatest past achievement of discovering a great conspiracy by stringing together apparently random coincidental events into a larger conspiracy aboard the Enterprise that involves its highest officers.
This theme was revisited again in an episode of Star Trek: Voyager called "The Voyager Conspiracy." Seven of Nine expands her database by assimilating all of Voyager's ship logs. Overwhelmed by the amount of data, she begins to string together unconnected, but coincidental events into a plot by Voyager's officers to spearhead a Federation invasion into the Delta quadrant.
This is exactly what Bragg, Colangelo, and Merchan are doing in the Trump case. In order to use the NY State law 17-152, they need to find a predicate crime that was being "furthered" by a falsification of records. In order to do this, they have to find business records that could be alleged to have been falsified in order to further this crime. Which business records these are depends on what they settle on as the crime being furthered.
It was actually Bragg, Colangelo, and Merchan who were the conspirators who were concocting a plot against Trump in order to illegally influence the 2024 election.
They started by building a conspiracy where there was none. They took normal business dealings between Trump and David Pecker, and Trump and Michael Cohen, and Cohen and Pecker, and alleged that they were all working in a conspiracy regarding the election, despite evidence that what Pecker was doing was something he's done many times before for many other celebrities, that Cohen was a liar and a thief and was doing many things on his own initiative, and that buying silence is not a campaign finance violation (see John Edwards).
Now that the alleged conspirators were in place, they needed a predicate crime. Of course, influencing the 2016 election that Hillary Clinton lost was the crime, but prosecuting election interference is a federal matter, not a NY state county court matter. They needed a crime that could be prosecuted in a county court, so they looked at financial transactions of the Trump Organization. They settled on the payments to Cohen as "legal expenses," which they were, and alleged that this was a falsification of a business record to cover up a conspiracy, the conspiracy that Bragg, Colangelo, and Merchan concocted against Trump.
As a misdemeanor, prosecuting these falsified business records expired several years ago. As legal expenses, these records were never falsified at all and should be immune from prosecution. As a conspiracy, the records were falsified in order to further another crime. This is the reverse-engineering of the crime that President Trump was charged with, was prosecuted for, and was convicted of.
Bragg, Colangelo, and Merchan conspired to create a conspiracy where none existed, to illegally influence an election by means that were previously determined to not be illegal, by falsifying business records that were normal and correct business transactions. As with most constructed conspiracies, they usually fall apart under the weight of their own assumptions, and this was no different. They kept the nature of the underlying crime a secret for as long as possible to prevent Trump's team from investigating it more deeply. They kept the nature of the underlying crime vague for the jury so they would focus on the "conspiracy" and not the facts of the alleged crime. They needed the "conspiracy" to be true in order to convert normal business records into "falsified" business records so they could have something to prosecute in their lowly county court.
The whole thing was a fabrication just like in the episodes of Star Trek that I cited at the outset.
-PJ
Well you have to admit, it was pretty shallow. I think Trump really blew it by not testifying. He can be a charmer.
Trump did not falsify, nor cause another person to falsify a business record, because the entry was correctly posted as a ‘legal expense.’
The NY appeals court must intervene to act immediately; otherwise the federal court will have to act - or else. Normally the state appeal process can take months; that is inadequate when a leading candidate for president is threatened with being sequestered and prohibited from campaigning.
I think the appellate process is little likely to "toss the verdicts"; that normally occurs with copious paper work and detailed legal cause for dismissal. I doubt the appellate courts will take on that burden with an emergency appeal. The emergency is obvious - the end of the American Constitutional electoral process. To my untrained mind, a 'stay' is most likely so that the Trump presidential campaign can proceed and later time can be spent on documenting unethical and/or unconstitutional legal abuses.
It is one of the most critical crises in modern history, perhaps ever in our history. Democrat attempts to circumvent the normal electoral process in order to end all opposition to their permanent power shows what criminal traitors they consider themselves - and they do not care that they are perceived that way.☠😠
An amazing crowd of supporters.
The “appelate process” is a murky, slippery subject. I am hoping that NY’s highest court will make a ruling soon. If the NY courts mess around until September, that will put SCOTUS in an uncomfortable position. SCOTUS already denied Jackass Smith’s motion to expedite, and Roberts and other justices don’t want SCOTUS to appear inconsistent.
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