Decoding New York’s Legalese: President Trump Was Wrongly Prosecuted and Convicted

The corruption of the law in the Manhattan case against President Donald J. Trump should shock every American, and the devil is in the details of the law, the prosecution, the judge, the jury, and the conviction.

There were two financial accounts referred to in the prosecution. The first is a revocable trust fund for Donald J. Trump which was created just after he became president, and the second is the personal account of Donald J. Trump.

The indictment indicates that Trump received invoices from Michael Cohen where each invoice was then added to the general accounting ledger with a voucher number, and then a check was issued to pay each invoice.

11 counts of the indictment are for receiving invoices from Michael Cohen. The first invoice covered two months (January and February), and the other 10 invoices covered one month each for legal services. How anyone can even suggest that receiving an invoice is falsifying a business record is nonsensical—Joe Hoft at joehoft.com pointed out that this is comparable to being in receipt of a bill for electricity. Yet, Trump was found guilty on all eleven counts for falsifying business records for receiving invoices.

Two invoices were added to vouchers in the trust fund ledger, and the other nine were added to vouchers in the personal account ledger. How anyone would suggest that this is falsifying business records is questionable. These were ordinary and customary procedures by bookkeeping clerks to enter invoices into accounts payable vouchers.

Another 11 counts of the indictment are for paying the invoices with checks from the trust fund (2) and from the personal account (9) of Donald J. Trump. Apparently, paying an invoice with a check can be a felony in Manhattan. Again, Trump was found guilty on all eleven counts.

Every count of the indictment has this phrase:

[W]ith intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof, made and caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise [emphasis added]….

Clearly receiving invoices and writing checks are not falsifying business records, but the major problem with this case is that the prosecution, the judge, and the jury have conflated the personal accounts of Donald J. Trump with the enterprise business accounts of the Trump Organization. The checks that were written to Michael Cohen did not come from the Trump Organization , and the only connection is that President Trump was using the accounting division of the company he founded and owned to manage his personal accounts.

Look at New York State Penal Law § 175.10:

A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.

As you see, additional conditions need to be met for a first degree charge, and an official New York Courts website offers those alternatives:

makes or causes a false entry in the business records of an enterprise; or
alters, erases, obliterates, deletes, removes or destroys a true entry in the business records of an enterprise; or
omits to make a true entry in the business records of an enterprise in violation of a duty to do so which he or she knows to be imposed upon him or her by law or by the nature of his or her position; or
prevents the making of a true entry or causes the omission thereof in the business records of an enterprise.

You will notice that Alvin Bragg accused Trump of the first alternative, stating that Trump “made and caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise….” (Refer back to indictment language.)

The law then defines enterprise to mean:

‘Enterprise’ means any entity of one or more persons, corporate or otherwise, public or private, engaged in business, commercial, professional, industrial, eleemosynary, social, political or governmental activity.

Now certainly the Trump Organization would qualify as an enterprise, but the private checking account and the trust fund account of Donald J. Trump, the private citizen, are not accounts of an enterprise. The definition is stated clearly in the law. Neither of the Trump private accounts are used to conduct business, but instead they are used to pay the bills and financial obligations of the private citizen, Donald J. Trump.

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