Posted on 06/13/2024 5:42:10 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
A member of the Federal Election Commission testified to Congress on Thursday that the Manhattan district attorney who led the prosecution of former President Donald Trump overstepped his authority.
Trey Trainor, a Trump-appointed commissioner who once served as FEC chairman, said during a hearing that District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat, inappropriately incorporated a federal election campaign law into his charges against Trump.
“Bragg has effectively usurped the jurisdiction that this Congress has explicitly reserved for federal authorities,” Trainor said during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. “This overreach sets a troubling precedent for politicization of legal proceedings at the state level.”
Trump was convicted of falsifying business records in the first degree, a charge that requires the defendant to have violated another law in addition to the falsification of records.
In Trump’s case, Bragg argued Trump also violated New York election law’s section 17-152. The statute states that it is against the law to conspire to influence an election “by unlawful means.”
Bragg gave the jury three options for what those unlawful means could have been. One of the options was that Trump violated the Federal Election Campaign Act. The other two options were additional falsifications of records or tax violations.
The jury did not have to agree on what unlawful means Trump used to violate section 17-152, only that he violated the overarching state law. In other words, some jurors could have decided Trump breached FECA to reach their guilty conclusion. The jurors did not have to document which of the three unlawful means options they chose to arrive at their guilty verdict, so there is no way to know if any of them used FECA.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
I know.
Not only did Merchan violate President Trump's fifth amendment due process rights by letting the jury presume guilt on that "second crime," he even made it a thought crime by criminalizing "intent."
It's like arresting someone for shoplifting because they might have been thinking about stealing something but chickened out at the last minute. There is no proof that the person ever considered shoplifting, they might have just been price comparison shopping without intending to purchase that day.
-PJ
Duh! And water is wet.
"If the law supposes that, the law is a ass." - Charles Dickens
Here’s a nice example of where reporting on the trial went sideways. After Justice Merchan instructed the jury, Fox News correspondent John Roberts hastily tweeted that jurors need not “agree on the crime” and that “4 could agree on one crime, 4 on a different one, and the other 4 on another.” But Roberts had failed to appreciate the distinction between the elements of a § 175.10 offense and the “unlawful means” of carrying out a § 17-152 conspiracy. Right-wing media went berserk, and the mischaracterization polluted even mainstream commentary. In a piece published shortly after the convictions, for example, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley inaccurately stated that “Merchan allowed the jury to find that the secondary offense was any of the three vaguely defined options.” But Justice Merchan did instruct the jury that it had to find the object offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Turley just confused the object offense with the unlawful means by which a defendant might carry it out.
But the indictments were for falsifying business records in furtherance of another crime, not for the other crime itself. If Bragg didn't even reveal what the other crime was (the "object offense") until his closing arguments, then how can the jury even review evidence of this other crime? How was the defendant supposed to cross-examine this other crime? How can Merchan instruct the jury to deliberate a crime that was never indicted nor evidence presented?
How can this jury deliberate, say, federal election violations when it's not even their legal jurisdiction to do so? Even state campaign funding violations are beyond the scope of Merchan's court, and yet he charged the jury with deliberating it!
I also think this author fails to appreciate that his so-called "conspiracy" is unproven and uncharged. The indictments were for falsifying business records; the furtherance of another crime is what was alleged, it was supposed, and then it became assumed to be true, and finally Trump was presumed to be guilty of it.
What is Kafkaesque is this author's complacency with the presumption of guilt in the United States (a violation of the fifth amendment due process clause), along with wholesale violations of Trump's sixth amendment rights as being "Extraordinary Ordinariness."
-PJ
Not that anything will happen to this fat tub of sh## because hes black, would like to see him grilled in a congressional hearing
So this does make the malfeasance that Braggart employed a FEDERAL violation. SCOTUS, do your duty.
America is receiving a lesson in how the law is applied and to whom the law applies.
Oh. He “testified to Congress”. I feel much better now, knowing that everything will be made right. Because it always happens after someone testifies to Congress.
Bragg and that damnable judge should BOTH be disbarred and never be allowed to participate in a legal proceding again.
What is Kafkaesque is this author's complacency with the presumption of guilt in the United States (a violation of the fifth amendment due process clause), along with wholesale violations of Trump's sixth amendment rights as being "Extraordinary Ordinariness.— Thomas Peebles (@Peeb66573Thomas) June 14, 2024
You misspelled "hanged" (after fair trial unlike this one).
“And that’s why that commie tyrant Merchan forbade any defense witnesses.”
—————
That’s not entirely correct - Trump did have some defense witnesses. However, he specifically did not allow this particular guy to testify as to his expertise, which is in federal election law, as applied to the facts of this case. All he was going to permit this guy to do was to read the law. A fifth grader could do that. I would think that this act alone, of not allowing Trump to present an effective defense, in and of itself represents substantial constitutional error that would justify overturning every single one of the 34 bogus convictions.
…and even if they intended and even planned to shoplift, there is no crime until someone makes an overt act in furtherance of that crime, such as concealing an item on one’s person.
Spread the word...
-PJ
Thanks for your verbal contribution for our side of the argument. Well said. If I knew who you are in real life, it might be dangerous for you if I had attributed your text. I have worn my “Voting for the convicted felon” t-shirt in the flesh at 2 chess clubs where I live. I know for a fact that not all the chess players have the same sentiment, but none of them hassled me.
-PJ
I have always been uncomfortable with convictions based on mind reading. Sometimes the court has to make a judgment based on supposed intent, like police shooting a suspect. But it seems insane to me to convict Trump using the supposition of intention to interfere in an election, based on mind reading, because there was no victim.
If Watergate was "influencing an election by illegal means" by burgling the DNC headquarters to discover their election strategies, that's one thing. But running an oppo research campaign on your competitor, or suppressing negative stories about yourself, or running negative ads about your opponent? That's not illegal and Bragg is trying to criminalize what used to be called "dirty tricks" and "October surprises."
-PJ
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