Jury finds Donald Trump guilty on all 34 counts at hush money trial
reuters.com
reuters.com
I've already erased several snarky, gloating replies because I would like to see discussion of this proceed in something like a civil manner.
I wish there were a similar site for reasonable political debate, but the moderation required would probably be too expensive.
When the topic isn't controversial, that all tends to promote the best comments.
But when the topic is controversial, it simply makes one point of view dominant. (The "hivemind" as redditors say.)
And the firehose, but be warned: this has no moderation filters applied to it. https://firesky.tv/?filter=trump%20guilty
In terms of the pragmatic health of America, I'm not nearly as sure.
I don't think that's a good thing.
Edit: How is it lawfare? The charges are based on a questionable, novel legal theory that no one has ever been prosecuted for before, as nonpartisan legal experts have observed from the beginning:
“The bottom line is that it’s murky,” said Richard Hasen, an expert in election law and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles law school. “And the district attorney did not offer a detailed legal analysis as to how they can do this, how they can get around these potential hurdles. And it could potentially tie up the case for a long time.”
https://apnews.com/article/trump-indictment-legal-analysis-b...
And they ignored the statute of limitations in order to bring these charges several years late.
When the prosecution starts ignoring the rules and inventing new legal theories for political ends, that's lawfare.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/20/politics/exiting-job-clin...
Or, going waaaaaay back, Andrew ~Jackson~ (I mean Johnson, thank you) granting pardons to all Confederates after the Civil War.
<< “The bottom line is that it’s murky,” said Richard Hasen, an expert in election law and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles law school. “And the district attorney did not offer a detailed legal analysis as to how they can do this, how they can get around these potential hurdles. And it could potentially tie up the case for a long time.””
If you continue to read further in the article you linked then you would see that the DA had an answer to that:
<<“Bragg said the indictment doesn’t specify the potential underlying crimes because the law doesn’t require it.”
But beyond that, the DA did offer an explanation to how they could move forward with charging Trump:
<<“Falsifying business records can be charged as a misdemeanor, a lower-level crime that would not normally result in prison time. It rises to a felony — which carries up to four years behind bars — if there was an intent to commit or conceal a second crime. Bragg said his office routinely brings felony false business records cases.
In Trump’s case, Bragg said the phony business records were designed to cover up alleged state and federal election law violations. The $130,000 payment to Daniels exceeded the federal cap on campaign contributions, Bragg said. He also cited a New York election law that makes it a crime to promote a candidate by unlawful means.
“That is what this defendant did when he falsified business records in order to conceal unlawful efforts to promote his candidacy, and that is why we are here,” one of the case prosecutors, Chris Conroy, told the judge Tuesday.
Prosecutors, however, also alluded to another accusation involving tax law: that Trump’s scheme included a plan to mischaracterize the payments to Cohen as income to New York tax authorities.
“They did talk about tax crimes, and I think that could be potentially more compelling for the jury,” Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, said on ABC News. “It’s a safer bet than the campaign finance crimes.”
Bragg is “going to bring in witnesses, he’s going to show a lot of documentary evidence to attempt to demonstrate that all these payments were in furtherance of the presidential campaign,” said Jerry H. Goldfeder, a veteran election lawyer in New York and the director of Fordham Law School’s Voting Rights and Democracy Project.”
> And they ignored the statute of limitations in order to bring these charges several years late.
Again, in the article you linked it explains how they were legally able to extend the statute of limitations for this case:
<<There were some extensions during the pandemic, and state law also can stop the clock when a potential defendant is continuously outside the state.
Can you give an example of another US President who was charged for a criminal offence outside of their term of office and declared to be immune from prosecution?
Or one who was investigated and then publicly not charged because they were deemed to be immune (for crimes outside of their term in office)?
Bill Clinton undeniably committed perjury. That was during his term, but not related to his duties as President.
Despite his clear guilt, every Democrat in the Senate voted not remove him from office, and he was never charged by a criminal court.
He was also accused of rape and sexual assault by numerous women, and never charged in any of those cases.
The Democrat voters I knew at the time (including myself) knew quite well that he was guilty of perjury and sexual harassment, and probably sexual assault as well, but didn't care.
We felt that the investigation was politically motivated, and that having him in office was more important than enforcing the law.
As defrost said well: "the question of whether this was fair or unfair rests on whether other POTUS's have skated on criminal acts [for which they didn't have immunity as President]". Other POTUS's have, so, it was unfair.
Changing that may be a good idea, or it may simply lead to more abuse of power as the party in office investigates its enemies. I guess we'll find out.
People are not willing to entertain this non-sense. He means it when any reasonable person would burn Bill Clinton just to avoid the catastrophe conservatives would bring upon this country by making the law useless.
Trust it.
And fix your perspectives. They're dangerous.
People with a different opinion winning would not end democracy. It would in fact be a triumph of democracy.
On the other hand, trying to remove candidates from the ballot, or jail them before an election, is a real threat to democracy.
Let the people decide in November.
That's their stated goal and motivation. It's not because it's different. It's what it is.
Show me the proof. Not some poorly reasoned allegation or out of context edited excerpt, but the original source where "they" say they intend to end democracy.
I'm sorry I have to ask, do you guys think everyone else are just toddlers or that your uh... group of incredibly like minded individuals is really that clever?
>does thing
>claims to not do thing
Oh well I guess that settles that! We were all worried for nothing.
Anyway, this line of discussion is so far outside the HN guidelines (or the limits of "curious conversation"), I see little point in continuing.
If you want to bandy insults in a forum that doesn't expect any sort of rational thought, may I suggest reddit? I think you'd like that site better.
Edit in response to post below: Serious lack of self-awareness. Read your first message again and you'll see who made reasonable discussion impossible.
Don't you dare pretend like you're adhering to guidelines or standards of any sort, this forum or otherwise. The grandstanding is cute, but it's only fooling yourself.
Didn't every Republican senator do the same to save Trump from Impeachment despite clearly calling insurrection?
Donald Trump was convicted for acts outside of term in office as POTUS, the question of whether this was fair or unfair rests on whether other POTUS's have skated on criminal acts outside of their term in office.
Falsely testifying about Clinton's relations with a subordinate (Monica Lewinsky) was not an official act, and he didn't have immunity.
He was granted immunity by the Republican investigating him, Robert Ray, for reasons that AFAIK were never made clear.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/white_house-jan-june01...
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/20/politics/exiting-job-clin...
The question wasn't what the deal was, but why the prosecutor would offer such a sweet deal.
The usual reason is to save money, but that wasn't a concern in that huge everlasting investigation of Clinton.
I mean, it took years to badger the DOJ into prosecuting Trump for waging an insurrection when he was on his way out. Honestly Trump would have gotten the same treatment as Clinton if he hadn't gone apeshit at the end. He wouldn't have a Federal indictment or a Georgia indictment. The other Florida indictment wouldn't have happened if he would have just returned everything he had taken instead of lying about it for a year and trying to hide it.
The two NY cases would have resulted in a fine and community service if he had just kept his mouth shut and shown a little contrition.
Yeah, just like now, the goal is to damage Trump politically. That's exactly what people mean when they say the prosecution is politically motivated.
In the case of Clinton the entire “crime” was that he lied in the process of a political investigation into him which, ultimately we know today, had absolutely no legitimate basis whatsoever, as they ultimately found no crime aside from the one they induced. Today Republicans call this a “process crime” and they view it as foul play, presumably because they run that playbook themselves and know how dirty it is.
Today his conduct is a matter of course for Republicans — AG Jeff Sessions lied before Congress and wasn’t prosecuted. So really kvetching about Clinton at this point is ancient history and water under the bridge.
Again I ask you, point to something concrete which shows Bragg is a political operative instead of an independent DA. I’ll wait.
By his own admission, Bragg sued over 100 times to block Trump's policies. That's over 100 times he acted like a political operative instead of an independent (in the political sense) DA. How much more proof do you need?
But let me get this straight. Those 100+ cases were brought while Bragg was working as Chief Deputy Attorney General of New York. I'm not exactly sure what the Chief Deputy AG role is, but clearly he wasn't a director. Either way, how does working as and fulfilling the role of Deputy AG for the state of NY make him a political operative? It's not a political role in the least. Those 100+ cases were DACA and immigration cases, so they were for NY citizens and constitutions, not political investigations into Trump.
Frankly, I think you have a definition of "political operative" so broad that it includes every Democrat. That's not the standard we run things on. Democrats only investigating Democrats and Republicans only investigating Republicans is not how you arrive at accountability.
What proof I'm looking for is Bragg campaigning on the idea that he would "go after" Trump, as people keep saying. Him stating a fact of his past that he did these prosecutions in his role as Deputy AG is not that. Despite you trying to paint him as biased, he had actually said many times he will follow the facts and won't prejudge the case.
Also, crucially (and I don't know why this is continually glossed over) he did not even bring the case to begin with -- it was brought by Cy Vance. Bragg actually received great flak from Democrats for not acting with more alacrity, which is what you would have expected if he were out to "get" Trump. By the time Bragg was elected the case was already before a grad jury. So this whole demonization of Bragg misses the mark entirely.
That's "glossed over" because it's not true. Bragg was elected Manhattan DA in 2021. This case was brought before the grand jury on Jan 30, 2023 and the indictment was approved on March 30, 2023.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Bragg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution_of_Donald_Trump_in...
As for the rest, this discussion is clearly going nowhere. Bragg declared his intention to fight Trump during the campaign and spent several years trying to find a way. If you don't think that's political bias, I can't convince you.
---
Edit: Stop wasting my time. You claimed Vance brought the case, then quoted a source proving that was false: "Vance did not seek an indictment". To avoid admitting your mistake, you changed your claim from "brought the case" to "the first grand jury". I don't think you're discussing this in good faith.
All I'm "learning" from you is sophistry.
Vance authorized the attorneys on the team to present evidence to the grand jury near the end of 2021, but he did not seek an indictment. Those close to Vance say he wanted to leave the decision to Bragg, the newly elected district attorney.
Bragg's grand jury was not the first grand jury to have heard the evidence.
> As for the rest, this discussion is clearly going nowhere.
I disagree, I think you're learning a lot of new facts about the case you were unaware of before. Like the one above. I'm happy to spread knowledge.
> If you don't think that's political bias, I can't convince you.
If you think that's political bias then you must think every Democrat is politically biased against Republicans and vice versa, so therefore no Democrat can ever investigate a Republican. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to me to be the obvious conclusion from your stance. I don't see a way a Democrat could prosecute a Republican without charges of political bias with your outlook on what constitutes bias.
Thankfully that's not the system we live under (yet), so I don't care if I can't convince you that's a bad way to run things. Suffice it to say though, you (and moreover Trump) are going to be sorely disappointed if that's your expectation for how things run.
Edit in response to your edit (as the someone else said, learn to post, you're supposed to wait for the rate limiter to expire not to circumvent it with edits):
> Edit: Stop wasting my time. You claimed Vance brought the case, then quoted a source proving that was false: "Vance did not seek an indictment". To avoid admitting your mistake, you changed your claim from "brought the case" to "the first grand jury". I don't think you're discussing this in good faith.
1) I'm not wasting your time, any moment you spend here is a moment you choose to spend. If you consider the time engaged with me wasted, you are the one wasting it. I haven't forced you to write a single word or to spend a single second doing something you didn't want to do.
2) That "Vance did not seek an indictment" does not mean Vance didn't originally bring the case. The facts were originally made public in 2018 due to Michael Cohen's testimony before Congress. Cy Vance then opened a case into the allegations, and advanced it to the point where in 2021 it was in front of a grant jury. Crucially at that point, Vance was on his way out and Bragg had already been elected. Which means while the case was being worked on before Bragg even got it, which is what he states in the other source I linked in this thread ("I haven't seen the facts of the case yet", meaning the case that Cy Vance started).
Either way, the point you seem very intent on missing, is that when Bragg started as DA, there was a case already started by Vance, that had already been before a grand jury once before, that already had been investigated and worked on for years. So to say that the case only made it to trial because Bragg had some sort of political agenda is false. He said before he was elected that he would continue the case and let the facts direct it, without prejudging it. You are conveniently ignoring all of that to conclude the prosecution was politically motivated because Bragg is a Democratic political operative. The track record and history of the case does not bear that theory out.
> I don't think you're discussing this in good faith.
Then don't talk to me anymore, I'm not going to try and convince you of my faith. Why am I spending all these words and hours if I'm not being genuine? Don't waste your time with such pointless allegations, just go do something else.
I've said already I'm not a lawyer so maybe I'm not using terms precisely that you understand a different way, but I'm not trying to deceive you or make specious arguments. I'm genuinely engaging with you at a fine grained level and we are honed in on this idea that Bragg is a political operative. You've brought very light evidence to bear such as anodyne statements of a desire for pursue accountability of political figures like Trump, and the fact he worked for a Democratic state government, but you haven't explained how that doesn't preclude all Democrats from investigating any Republican. I'm still waiting on that logic.
But moreover you claim Bragg's history of bringing DACA cases against the Trump administration on behalf of citizens is evidence of some sort of Democratic political animus against Trump himself.
To which I pointed out in fact the case was first brought/started/opened/whatever not by Bragg, but by his predecessor. The most aggressive statement against Trump you can find is Bragg stating he will continue the already started case, and he will let the facts take him where they may, which includes holding Trump accountable if necessary, but all the while not prejudging before looking at the facts of the case.
Which.... just doesn't rise to the level of political bias you are alleging that would bring into question the veracity of the case that just concluded.
That said, SCOTUS has a very liberal interpretation of the concept of precedent so anything is possible.
Nitpicking: New York's court nomenclature is super weird. "Supreme Courts" are their ordinary trial courts. Their highest level court is the Court of Appeals.
Or it could rule that the trial was invalidly performed. That would overturn the conviction, though prosecution could be brought again.
As you note, either of these would cause all hell to break loose. Last week I would have said that it was nonetheless certain. Today, noting that the court decided not to abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, I'm far less sure. They have no specific love for the man, even if I still think they're likely to act in a partisan manner in general.
Breaking law A = misdemeanour
Breaking law A + another law = Felony
Prosecution never revealed the other law Trump was alleged to have broken until closing arguments. Trial is about breaking law A. But closing arguments are about breaking law A in combination with another law.
The prosecution gave a set of possible other laws at closing arguments, in which they went last. The judge instructed the jury that they can individually select which other law they think Trump broke.
How can this possibly be a fair trail process, when you can defend yourself for breaking law A, but get punished for breaking laws A + X. In which X is not revealed to you during the proceedings of the trail, but only to the jury at the last moment.
This is actually the complete opposite of the truth. Almost always, the side who has the absolute last word to the jury is the side that bears the burden of proof, i.e., the plaintiff (or government in a criminal trial). Usually this manifests as plaintiff goes first, then defendant, then plaintiff gets a rebuttal argument.
Also, I don't see in the transcript of the closing arguments any objections defense raised to the second crime only being brought up then, so even if it were true, it can't be raised in appeal.
Where did you hear this? This is not true as far as I know.
Here is a NY State guide to jury trials that seems to support that prosecution always goes second:
After all evidence has been presented, the defense may deliver a summation, or a closing statement to the jury. *The prosecutor must then deliver a summation*. The summations review the evidence and present arguments based upon the evidence in the case to try to persuade the jury to convict or acquit the defendant.
So first the defense may (they can opt not to) deliver a summation. Then (meaning after the defense) the prosecution must (they don't have a choice) offer a summation.
> So you literally have a situation where the defendant went through a whole trial not knowing the full set of specific laws he was alleged to have broken.
No, this is not literally the situation. He knew the entire time he was charged for "Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree" under NY State law. This was made very clear to him, but moreover his lawyers knew this the entire time as well. The particular law states:
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.
INTENT means conscious objective or purpose. Thus, a person acts with intent to defraud when his or her conscious objective or purpose is to do so.
It's not like some surprise evidence was revealed at closing which the defense had no opportunity to counter. In fact, they had every opportunity to mount a defense.
Notably, when they had their chance, they rested their case after calling a single witness who actually, in dramatic fashion, was caught in a lie by the prosecution on cross the way the defense hoped to catch Cohen in a lie on cross. Now it's laughable when they claim "we didn't have a chance to mount a defense", and people who didn't watch the trial treat that credulously.
What exactly would they have said in defense if they had another opportunity? "Cohen's a liar, the judge is biased, the jury is rigged, the venue is not friendly." Nothing we haven't heard already, that's the point; everything that could have been said, has been said, and now that the verdict is "guilty" they want to have said more, as if whatever they have to say isn't more of the same deflection the jury didn't buy.
We will see what the appeals court says but it's not looking good based on the fact many people have tried to argue this point on appeal, and it's been rejected.
"Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree" is a misdemeanour, a small fine. Which at this point (2016) expired and could not be charged.
The main reason this was resurrected and elevated to a Felony is because of politics. The prosecutor is a Democrat that literally got elected on an "I'll get Trump platform". Which under the American system is fine. But suppose he doesn't get Trump in the end. Should he be charged for defrauding voters? Clearly he raised money off the promise to get Trump.
As far as the judge: The standard for a judge to recuse themselves is public "perception of bias" How could the judge not be biased, when he donated to a "Stop Trump" campaign in the past. Which is also contrary to NY ethical guidelines for judges. His daughter was and is fund raising millions off the trail. How can the judge's claim no to be biased be taken seriously when his family has a financial interest in the outcome of the trial?
>"INTENT means conscious objective or purpose. Thus, a person acts with intent > to defraud when his or her conscious objective or purpose is to do so"
How could this trial have proved what it charged .. the intent for classifying the NDA as a legal expense was fraudulent (that it was really a campaign contribution). When there's a gap of a year between the time Trump got elected, and the classification happened. Trump got elected in 2016. Accountant classified it as a legal expense in 2017. How could the act of misclassifying be the campaign contribution (the fraudulent act), when it happened post election?
Without mind reading, how exactly did they manage to prove that NDA was a camping contribution and not simply to spare his spouse embarrassment from an affair from being publicly alleged ?
How can this be a fair trial when the judged allowed the prosecution to state that it is a fact that the payments constituted an unlawful financial contribution, yet simultaneously denied Trump the opportunity to present his expert campaign finance witness, that would have countered those claims. The jury makes decisions based on the evidence they get to hear. Yet the judge allowed only one side to be presented.
Finally, A conflicted judge will jail a former President based on a convoluted crime that requires two parts, with the second part ambiguous intent to commit X crime, and some aspect of mind reading and time travel.
Doesn't seem like most Americans are on board with this. This is bouncing Trump's poll numbers.
The people that want to get "Trump" are not stupid, so this just must be part A of a bigger plan ...so what is the next phase of their plan to prevent the public from electing Trump in a Democracy? I'm waiting to see.
You are aware that the trial was opened to the media and heavily reported on, and that the official transcripts are publicly accessible via the internet (at https://pdfs.nycourts.gov/PeopleVs.DTrump-71543/transcripts/), right?
It's fascinating to me that you've paid enough attention to the trial to have received the right wing talking points as to why it's objectionable, but you haven't actually looked into any of the first hand information directly from the trial to verify the right wing talking points.
> How did you watch the trial when it wasn't televised?
I was using the word "watch" in the github repo sense, not in the visual television sense. I followed along with it via reporters who went to the trial and wrote down what they heard. Also I followed commentary from former prosecutors, attorneys and judges. I tried to stay away from political commentary from pundits and politicians, and I looked at left and right leaning sources.
> The prosecutor is a Democrat that literally got elected on an "I'll get Trump platform".
I've asked others for a source for this, and the best they have come up with is Bragg saying "We need to hold Trump accountable", which is a pretty anodyne statement for a DA to make compared to the one your purporting him to have made -- "I'll get Trump" is pretty extreme. What I've heard him say specifically is that he promised to follow the facts wherever they lead, and he promised not to prejudge the case.
> Should he be charged for defrauding voters? Clearly he raised money off the promise to get Trump.
He didn't actually campaign on a platform of getting Trump, he had a platform of reducing gun violence and reforming Riker's. Show me Bragg making one single stump speech or campaign event where he promises to "Get Trump". I predict you won't be able to, because actually Bragg is an eminently fair and competent DA, and all around good guy.
> How could the judge not be biased, when he donated to a "Stop Trump" campaign in the past.
Because he didn't -- he donated $15 to pro Biden and $10 to something called "Stop Republicans". It was seen as maybe not a great move by the ethics board, but they dismissed the complaint, and the appeals court didn't step in. At the end of the day, yes the judge is a Democrat. But that does not mean he is automatically biased against Trump and all Republicans to the point he can't preside over this cause. And frankly we don't want to live in a system where the standard is that politicians can only be judged/investigated/prosecuted by members of their own party.
Judges can and must be fair to a defendant even when they disagree with them politically. That is their whole job and we should be putting people in that position who can do precisely that. In the case of Judge Merchan, during the trial is he was eminently fair to Trump. He allowed him to get away with 10 counts of violating a gag order without any jail time. Normal people would be behind bars after 1 instance. Merchan made objections on behalf of defense counsel, and in fact had to warn Trump's attorney that he was dropping the ball for his client when he was failing to object. So the ethics board was right in dismissing the complaint, as the judge was fair to Trump.
> His daughter was and is fund raising millions off the trail.
Under the law she doesn't have enough stake in the outcome of the trial for it to matter. I hear people complaining about this constantly, but how do you figure the daughter of the judge raising money for Democrats means the judge is biased against Trump. Again, his conduct during the trial shows that he in fact was not biased. So what does the daughter have to do with anything. Seems like a red herring to me.
> How could the act of misclassifying be the campaign contribution (the fraudulent act), when it happened post election? ... Without mind reading, how exactly did they manage to prove that NDA was a camping contribution and not simply to spare his spouse embarrassment from an affair from being publicly alleged ?
Read the testimony of Hope Hicks. She testified under oath that he admitted to her after the election, while he was President, that he was fortunate to have hid the information from voters because he feels they would have reacted negatively to it. Trump had the opportunity to defend himself on this point but he didn't, so it's a matter of fact at this point.
> judged allowed the prosecution to state that it is a fact that the payments constituted an unlawful financial contribution
Because it was already adjudicated by SDNY.
> denied Trump the opportunity to present his expert campaign finance witness, that would have countered those claims.
Trump was free to present the witness, but he was looking for the witness to instruct the jury on his own interpretation of the law, which the judge disallowed because that's the judge's role in the trial, not an expert witness'.
> Yet the judge allowed only one side to be presented.
The judge allowed both sides to be presented. The defense was allowed to call any number of witnesses who could have testified in Trump's defense. Allen Weisselberg. Keith Schiller. Trump's family. The doorman who was paid off, I don't know his name. Any of them could have cleared up the matter, but they weren't called in Trump's defense because Trump's counsel knew they wouldn't have stood up under cross. Because Trump is guilty.
> a former President based on a convoluted crime that requires two parts, with the second part ambiguous intent to commit X crime, and some aspect of mind reading and time travel.
No mind reading. No time travel. It's just that he had to falsify business records in furtherance of another crime. The law is actually 2 pages long and straightforward. Moreover, most laws have more than one part, so that's not really objectionable. Maybe the case is a little convoluted, but that's because the crime was; they intentionally tried to hide this scheme through obfuscation, shell companies, and ultimately fraud -- of course it's convoluted.
> with the second part ambiguous intent to commit X crime,
No ambiguous intent. Pure intent. The jury determined Trump had that intent. Juries are the people in society we task with determining intent of criminal defendants, and they did so in this case. Why is that objectionable to you?
> Doesn't seem like most Americans are on board with this. This is bouncing Trump's poll numbers.
Doesn't matter if most Americans are on board with this, and it doesn't matter what happens to Trump's poll numbers -- it wasn't a political prosecution, it was an application of the law. Why are you bringing political considerations into this?
> The people that want to get "Trump" are not stupid, so this just must be part A of a bigger plan
This is paranoia.
CBC is pretty much is Canadian version of PBS.
I have also watched yesterday a more conspiratorial take on things which I suppose you could classify as fun intuitive speculation. Ian Caroll on Twitter
https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1djGXNqnEVdxZ
I wish it was televised so I could watch it directly.
But maybe I can get some AI help to read the pdf transcripts time permitting.
https://www.youtube.com/live/uksgiZxGk4U?si=5WNVC0ysmhcTHubH
Contrast that with the Jan 6th case, which is a federal case and is currently before the Supreme Court.
Case law is case law. The point was we haven't even gotten started yet on "deciding" anything.
Otherwise, this is legal case law today which will be referenced in the future no doubt.
The roughly 50-45 Trump-Biden favor briefly flipped to 48-50 but now looks to be reverting to the mean.
Biden has a non zero probability of dying before the election (of natural causes). Plus DNC nomination is a super pac driven process. Math might just compute.
So does Trump, who is arguably in worse health, even if slightly younger.
So the odds of Biden dying, times the odds of Michelle Obama wanting to run, times the odds of the DNC not picking Kamala Harris—the current VP, times the odds of Michelle Obama actually winning, might work out to 4%?
...uh... I don't even know what to say about that.
has Trump in the lead. Betfair have Trump 1:1, Biden 6:4 on Betfair.
On the chance that he wins presidency, it is sure he will push for laws to gain more power. Perhaps even more Republican supreme court justices.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/legal-troubles-former-us-pr...
* TRIAL OVER HUSH MONEY TO PORN STAR
* SPECIAL COUNSEL'S ELECTION SUBVERSION CHARGES
* GEORGIA ELECTION-SUBVERSION CHARGES
* NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL CIVIL LAWSUIT
* SPECIAL COUNSEL'S CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CHARGES
I'm not a Trump fan but I'm not sure how well this plays out. He's unlikely to get locked up and saying don't vote for Trump - he's guilty of stuff although we are not quite sure what but definitely guilty, may not play that well with electors.
part of it:
>Yet to get the case to court, Bragg had to turn the charges into felonies, with longer time limits. So he invented a novel and untested legal theory, maligned even by liberal legal commentators, that the bookkeeping issues were to illegally influence an election – his own 2016 winning election.
It's a special crime invented to get Trump. It's legally dubious that that's ok. I'm not a lawyer but I'm told there is a principle that laws should be clearly laid out rather than cobbled together after the offence and the case may well get overturned on appeal as a result.
For instance, this line right here: "But then along came Alvin Bragg, a Left-wing prosecutor who ran for office on the promise that he would do what prior prosecutors had failed to do, to get Donald Trump."
Try to find out where Bragg "ran for office on the promise the he would... get Trump".
I guarantee you, you will not be able to find this, because Bragg didn't actually do that.
Continuing:
There is nothing illegal about paying money to buy silence. It happens every day in court cases and business deals, where money is paid for non-disclosure agreements. And there is nothing illegal about politicians hiding their dirty laundry, happens every campaign.
That's the whole reason they had Michael Cohen do it off the books. But again, they had to hide the payment, so they lied about its purpose (legal expenses, they were not), and then they memorialized that lie in corporate records.
Crime 1 - falsification of business records. You can't tell the government a payment was for legal expenses when it was not.
Crime 2 - misuse of campaign funds. You can't use campaign finances to make hush money payments without reporting them, and you can't circumvent that mandated reporting by having your fixer take out a mortgage and then paying him back with pretextual "legal expenses".
> here is an article outlining his plans and promise on doing just that before he took office
This article does not show that Bragg ran for office promising to prosecute Trump. Quite the opposite. Notwithstanding the article you linked was written after the election, it doesn't even allege what you are claiming.
Bragg, who will be sworn into office on January 1, said he hasn’t been briefed on the facts of the Trump case, which is before a state grand jury. But he indicated he has no plans to disrupt the investigation he’s inheriting even as he also wants to focus on his own agenda.
“This is obviously a consequential case, one that merits the attention of the DA personally,” Bragg said in a recent interview over lunch in Harlem.
He ran on a platform to shake-up the culture of the storied prosecutor office.
Bragg even explicitly says he plans to treat Trump the same as any other citizen, in that he will apply the same standards to Trump: "even though the investigation involves a former president, he would apply “the analysis that we’ve always used, I’ve always used, in multiple offices.” He said that is: “Would you bring this case otherwise? That’s got to be the guiding light.”
So thanks for the article, it proves my point. You won't be able to find one that proves your point, because Bragg didn't actually campaign on prosecuting Trump.
> The falsification was that the records were not properly labeled as campaign expenditures.
Well that's the crux of the matter. Your framing, that they were "not properly labeled" was Trump's defense, and was rejected by a jury after reviewing the evidence. In fact, the jury found the records were not properly labeled intentionally in the commission of a crime.
> which is usually not done by local/state courts
But sometimes is, as in this case.
> prosecutors usually don't have the authority to prosecute on federal campaign laws
But sometimes they do? Either way that's not what happened here, they didn't prosecute on federal campaign laws. All they had to do was show that Trump intended to commit a crime, one of which could be violating campaign finance laws. That's not the same as prosecuting a federal campaign law. And besides, the article lists two additional crimes that were on the table to satisfy that requirement.
> this case is very novel in that regard.
I would expect it to be -- not too many people are prosecuted for the facts of this case because not too many people put themselves in a situation to be prosecuted as such.
> Furthermore, the judge allowed the jurors to differ on what the second crime (the alleged crime the falsified records were covering for) actually was. So, the jury was not unanimous on all facts of the case.
Wrong, the jury was unanimous on the facts required for conviction. If the law requires the commission of an additional crime, and 6 jury members points to crime A, while the other 6 jury members points to crime B, that satisfies the requirement of the law. There's no requirement for them all to have to point to the same crime, why should there be? The point of the upgrade to a felony is to make it so that if you do more crime, you do more time. What is the problem with this, that seems reasonable to me.
> you are usually given ample and crystal-clear instructions at every step of the process, notably getting an easy-to-follow checklist of what facts you have to find to find the defendant guilty.
And sometimes you're not? You keep pointing to "usually this" and "usually that", but not everything is usual, especially in an unusual case. Something being unusual doesn't mean it's wrong or nefarious. And you seem to be speaking as to how things are usually done, but I'm not confident you have the depth/breadth of knowledge or experience in this area to actually claim how things usually are with any authority. There are other resources that have been posted here (a link from justsecurity) which seem to indicate that this law has been used frequently in the past to prosecute individuals.
> Judge Merchan did NOT do this and instead gave somewhat confusing verbal instructions to the jury.
You can't say this, you don't know the jury was confused. If they were confused, they had ample opportunity for clarification from the judge. In fact they used this process to get clarification over the transcript and their instructions. The judge asked them if they needed more info and they said no. So the jury was not confused by their instructions. When they rendered their guilty verdict, they knew exactly what they were doing.
We're about to see just how right Mr. Carlin was.
Remember, remember, the 5th of November.
I recall Trump's 2016 election victory speech was actually good, well said. Read the transcript. He was sincere in his complements to Hilary, and he emphasised uniting everyone and repairing division which is exactly what leaders should do more often.
In my country we've had some shocker victory speeches from both sides of politics. Rambling egotistical diatribes feature heavily, or straight up reinforcing division and team-sport gloating.
This trial. I don't get it. $130,000 is nothing. NDA payments are legal, but we're told that classifying the payment incorrectly is some great crime? Give me a break, it's a porn star! Who cares if they had sex 20 years ago? Obviously a running president doesn't want a disgruntled porn star blabbing about old raunchy encounters, factual or otherwise. Enter the legal NDA.
America is funny. Bill Clinton lied about his affair with an employee while he was president. The Stormy affair supposedly happened long ago. Regardless of how much Trump is disliked, this trial and conviction is a circus. It confirms "lawfare" is indeed a thing, aimed at what looks to me like a crime no worse than jay-walking, relatively speaking. Good luck USA.
> Who cares if they had sex 20 years ago?
Trump cared. He cared enough to pay her $130,000 for her silence, because he thought if she said what she had to say, he would not have won. This was the finding of the jury, and all that matters as far as his conviction.
> Enter the legal NDA.
If it were paid with legal funds. But it can't be paid for campaign funds, because they have to be accounted for. That's illegal. And you can't get around paying with campaign funds by having your fixer do it for you and then reimbursing him through disguised "legal payments". That's fraud.
Trump did both, so therefore today he's a criminal and a felon.
> this trial and conviction is a circus.
You didn't even pay attention to it, so how would you know? The trial was not a circus at all. It was all above board, the defendant's rights were maintained. Do you have anything specific to say as to how and why it was a circus?
Question: Do you think a candidate for high office should be able to commit and cover up crimes if they think it will increase their chances of getting elected? If not, if they do cover up and commit crimes, and are then elected, do you think they shouldn't be prosecuted if those crimes later come to light? Or are you immune from any crime you commit to get into office as long as you get elected to that office? Because it really seems like people want that to be the case.
> "therefore today he's a criminal and a felon"...
This token is repeated ad nauseam. As if the objective is less about justice and more about political ammo; gleeful celebration of tokenized, distributed memes and sound bites. Biden had his prepared statement ready to go: "Nobody is above the law"..."Trump is dangerous" etc.
Your comment begins with "you don't understand", followed by "you didn't pay attention". So simple! You're basically saying "if only your cognitive abilities weren't so lacking, you'd see the trial wasn't a circus at all. Nothing to see here!"
USA is a hugely important ally to my country. We want USA to do well, no matter what party is in power. I wish more people would get behind their president while they're in office, regardless of whether they voted for them or not. Same in my country. It's clear that significant cohorts seek to tear people down with endless negativity, even advocating civil unrest if their choice of president doesn't eventuate. Left and right, tantrum politics is the norm. If you can't see the circus, you are unable to remove yourself from the circus tent.
It's been a single day...
> As if the objective is less about justice and more about political ammo; gleeful celebration of tokenized, distributed memes and sound bites.
Again, maybe you don't understand American politics if you don't know why people would be happy about this.
> Biden had his prepared statement ready to go: "Nobody is above the law"
Not exactly a statement one needs to prepare, it's what he's been saying for 4 years.
> Your comment begins with "you don't understand", followed by "you didn't pay attention".
I'm not questioning your cognitive abilities, I'm calling you ignorant in as nice a way as I can. In your post you recited a bunch of things you are confused about:
- $130,000 is nothing.
It's not nothing, it's $130,000. In fact it wasn't only $130,000, the total payments to Cohen was $420,000. Either way, you should see the amounts normal people are prosecuted for. The Just Security article linked elsewhere in this thread shows people prosecuted under this law for returning unpurchased items at a store and using store credit. So prosecutors better be lifting their heads for $130k.
- NDA payments are legal
Not if they are unreported and excessive campaign expenditures.
- classifying the payment incorrectly is some great crime
If it's done intentionally as a lie to conceal a campaign finance violation, hell yeah that's a crime.
- Who cares if they had sex 20 years ago?
Trump cared, he thought his wife and family would care, but moreover he thought his voters would care, and he voiced that fact to Hope Hicks, which she testified at trial.
All these facts were learned at trial. So yeah, you would not be asking these questions had you paid attention to the trial.
> Left and right, tantrum politics is the norm. If you can't see the circus, you are unable to remove yourself from the circus tent.
So you can't point to a specific circus in the case of this trial as alleged. Instead you gesture vaguely to political tantrums, which is unconvincing. But note the person throwing the biggest tantrum at the moment is in fact Trump and Republicans. Everyone else as far as I can tell is acting like an adult.
You haven't been paying attention if you believe the moniker "convicted felon" started 3 days ago.
> Again, maybe you don't understand American politics if you don't know why...
Again you're joining unrelated dots to paint a picture of my "misunderstanding & confusion".
> ...people would be happy about this.
Happy about the displacement of justice with weaponising the legal system? There was never any confusion about why some are happy with the guilty verdict.
> It's not nothing
It's relatively nothing. It's white-collar slap-on-wrist stuff. The only difference is your efforts to tie it with crucially pivotal presidential campaign business. The wild claim you know Trump "knew he wouldn't win" unless he covered it up, is a glaring stretch.
Many voters didn't want Hilary, for various reasons. They would have stayed the course, unmoved by scandalous naughty interactions from years ago. Even after Trump's sexist and sorry "locker room talk" caught on mic, women still voted for him. Ask yourself why. Then ask yourself, if they weren't shaken by misogynistic locker-room talk, would they be shaken by sordid Stormy stories. Highly unlikely.
Likewise, many voters don't want Biden. For whatever reason - maybe it's less about Biden and more about not wanting Dems, or Harris after she stared into the camera at Americans and said with a straight face "the border is secure". Maybe that's why people will vote for a convicted felon whose dishonesty about the stationary cupboard is the lesser evil.
> So yeah, you would not be asking these questions had you paid attention to the trial.
I would and I did. Just as millions of others did. I'm asking the questions and all you have is "you don't understand, $130,000 violation, convicted felon etc". If you're trying to convince me of anything having "discovered" my vacuous understanding on the subject, you have failed.
> Circus
Even the judge had to step in to stop the mud-slinging descriptions of ass-slapping money-shot testimonies, unrelated to the case. A circus.
Can you show me an example of anyone besides a random internet comment using it? Like a journalist, media outlet, or a politician?
I know people are apt to use the phrase "twice impeached" because he was impeached twice. And one-term because he wasn't reelected due to his unpopularity. I know they do say "liable for rape" because he was found to have done that in a court of law. But no, I haven't heard "convicted felon" before he actually became a convicted felon, I'll be surprised if you can back that up substantially.
> my "misunderstanding & confusion".
You said it, not me.
> Happy about the displacement of justice with weaponising the legal system?
You are Australian, and here you are repeating American right wing propaganda to shit on a system of justice about which you know nothing except filtered through said right wing propaganda. Just stop? Please?
Can you even explain precisely how the system was weaponized without referencing said right wing sources?
You can't because it wasn't. We'll let the appeals process prove that for you, but the mere fact Trump is now given the right of an appeal should make clear that the system that's applied to everyone else is working for him, and that's not a "weaponization" of anything.
Trump was tried in a fair and speedy manner, he was was informed of all charges against him, his bail was set at a reasonable amount, he received all due process in accordance with the 14th and 5th amendments, he was presumed innocent throughout the trial, he was given a rigorous defense and was adequately represented by counsel, he heard all the evidence against him, he was afforded the right to cross examine all witnesses, he maintained his 5th amendment right to not testify, a jury of his peers applied the facts to the law and convicted him unanimously, and he will be sentenced fairly under the 8th amendment. And again, this whole process is subject to review and that is his right as well.
So where is the problem? Where does the weaponization come in? The prosecutor was independent of any political influence and they weren't even feds. Who is doing this weaponization? Joe Biden? How? And if Joe Biden is weaponizing the legal system, why is it prosecuting his own son? Does Joe Biden hate his own son that much?
Sorry, but this whole "weaponization" idea is literally a Republican political talking point, and you've bought into it from across the world for some reason. Republicans formed a whole committee over it and have had hearings for years now about this idea, hearings which crucially haven't actually produced evidence of weaponization! They keep promising it will come though!
> It's relatively nothing.
This is why I don't think you really paid attention to the trial at all, because the reason the amount breaks the law was explained at trial.
Anyway, I can understand why none of this seems important to you, seeing as it's about a political system that you are not a part of and which doesn't impact your life like it does mine. Maybe I'll try to explain it to you. In America we have a system where you have to spend money to get elected. The more money you spend the better your chances of getting elected. Because of this, everyone who is running for office has to report campaign expenditures, because there are limits on what people can spend.
Donald Trump felt that what Stormy had to say would hurt his campaign. This is not my "wild claim", this is a matter of fact determined by the jury as part of their verdict, so that's a settled matter. Trump felt that what Stormy had to say about their affair would hurt his chances at getting elected. Again, the evidence for this was presented at court and I don't have to repeat it here because you assure me you followed the trial, but if you didn't you can find it in the testimony of Hope Hicks and David Pecker who presented the best evidence of this fact. Anyway, the jury found that evidence credible.
So he committed fraud to hide everything. This was not a mere "white collar crime" -- this was a circumvention of the safeguards of the democratic process. If that's tolerated, then all slimeball shitbag candidates (and there are many) will do the same thing: hide their affairs, their rapes, their assaults all their dirty laundry through the same slimeball sleazebag scheme Trump came up with here.
Maybe that kind of behavior is tolerated in Australian politics, but it's a felony in America.
> I'm asking the questions...
You're asking questions that were answered clearly at trial. I'm not trying to convince you of anything.
> Even the judge had to step in to stop the mud-slinging descriptions of ass-slapping money-shot testimonies, unrelated to the case. A circus.
Erm, it's more like if you convict a clown, there's going to be evidence of a circus at trial. That testimony was relevant to the charged conduct, and the defendant invited the testimony when he denied the affair happened. If he didn't want to be embarrassed by contrary testimony, he should have just admitted the conduct. Don't you think it's highly relevant that the jury believe the affair happened if they're going to accept the lengths to which Trump went to conceal it?
That's not the same as the trial being a circus, and you admit that when you say the judge kept things in order.
Neither having sex with a porn star, nor paying a porn star to be quiet about the sex is illegal. Fraud is illegal, though, and is much worse than jay-walking.
Appeal easily takes him to 2025.
In the end, it's going to depend on how many are motivated to vote for the democrats, and how many are motivated to vote for/against trump.
but he will sure loose votes on swing states..
They were always going to vote for him and will always vote for him.
The election is going to get decided at the margins by the kind of people who can still get swayed one way or the other to vote or not vote for one or the other candidate.
Actually convicting him can give a solid reason for someone who would have only very reluctantly voted for him to switch to Biden or just not vote at all. Old school Reagan conservatives who find that voting for an actual convicted felon is something they just won't do. It does create an additional nice red line of illegality, which should still matter to a few folks. It will cause some ethical problems with some Republicans for voting for him, and it really doesn't take much. The 2016 election was decided by a few 10,000s of people in 3-4 different states.
Where it can backfire, though, is if the conviction is overturned on appeal.
Despite all the rhetoric, Trump has a pretty good track record to the average american. Wars ending, dollar a gallon gas. In contrast, Biden doesn't look too good. Wars starting, groceries going up weekly. We can say what is who's fault and what is out of their control and whatever, that is just noise to all but decided voters. I think that this case will sway some away, sway some for that don't like what they see as political weaponization of the justice system, and all in all it stays in Trumps favor.
Voters are able to assign fault to some degree, or they'd also assign "global pandemic starting" to Trump's record.
People I’ve talked to feel the same way about Trump. I’ve asked why vote in the primary for a candidate who lost the midterms and his last election, and the sentiment is that “We can’t let them get away with it” meaning the lawfare against Trump.
His supporters can't "vote harder", so it's entirely a question of how the marginal voters comes down on it. They don't have to switch their vote, but just decide to stay home.
I doubt the effect will be measurable, given the vast number of confounding variables. But should he lose, they will almost certainly ascribe it at least in part to the conviction.
You should tell them they're mistaken. He isn't being sidelined or kept off the ballot. That's a blatant lie that he is spreading himself. The case was supposed to happen last year until him and his lawyers used procedural tactics to delay it into this year. At any point he could have quietly chosen to settle, publicly declare innocence and then let the news pass just like he did with the Trump University case. But again, he chose not to for this one.
All of it, for multiple reasons.
1. Those are unrelated to the falsifying business records case, and those efforts weren't what Trump and his campaign have been referring to for these past few days anyway.
2. Those cases happened because Trump is alleged to have led a violent coup against his own government in violation of the 14th amendment. Something we all seem to have forgot with this constant distraction of courtrooms that this individual finds himself in.
3. Several of those cases were in states that Trump won. Of the several states that Biden won, the challenges were dismissed. Based on your link, it is entirely unfounded to claim this was political retribution.
4. In March the Supreme Court ruled none of them can proceed anyway and the map is irrelevant now, the article says this too. The 14th amendment can't be enforced by state courts, it has to be enforced by Congress.
In my opinion, you have to ignore a staggering number of facts and disregard all the actions of every single person in the courtroom all this month, including the actions of Trump and his own lawyers, to believe that this case in any way a political hit job. The judge actually went out of his way to prevent the prosecution from making it about that; the case was entirely about the illegal ways he conducted business along with his subordinates. Read the transcripts yourself if you don't believe me. https://pdfs.nycourts.gov/PeopleVs.DTrump-71543/transcripts/
>inb4 flags.
First-degree only refers to "falsifying business records in the first degree", which is otherwise a misdemeanor.
The number I've heard is 10% of such cases get jail time, but that includes plea deals which are themselves >90% of cases.
It's a first time conviction but 34 charges with all the antics he's pulled? Who knows what happens.
It won't be 20 years.
I doubt he'll do any actual prison time, but those are the maximums in NY.
But he can of course be written in, and it will be interesting to see what happens if he becomes the People's choice via write-in on the ballot of states where a felony bars you from the ballot.
I believe in general he could still be elected because there's no federal law against a felon holding the presidency and technically in States, you vote for the slate of electors (all of whom are eligible to serve), not the person they are voting for.
what about intimidating government officials to find votes for him? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_ph...
Yet this is the first time a US president has ever been brought to trial.
And one could argue that the case against him was based on a legal technicality, where the crime itself is hard to define (and the prosecution wasn't required to fully define it, or the jurors required to agree on it).
Yeah, so not cut and dry.
And the "confusing" part is required to arrive at a guilty verdict. The falsifying records charge cannot stand on it's own because the statute of limitations (2 years) has passed. Prosecutors had to engineer the charges into a felony via accusing Trump of violating NY election law (or maybe tax law?), which is anything but cut and dry.
Huh? It seems fairly clear-cut, as a crime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifying_business_records#El...
It's a form of fraud.
But the only way the jury could find him guilty of the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records was to conclude that Trump had done such falsification with the goal of committing another (second) crime.
And my point is, he was not tried or convicted of that second crime. Rather, the prosecution gave the jurors options to select from, and it was up to each juror to conclude that he was guilty of one of them. The prosecution didn't have to demonstrate that he was guilty of a specific crime, and the jurors didn't have to agree with eachother on the second crime.
Not saying the jurors got it wrong. They probably determined (or were instructed) that if they believed he had the affair and they believed that he didn't want the public (or the IRS) to know about it then that's enough to require a guilty verdict.
Because it was, based on the criteria and definition of the charge, as another member has kindly linked you. Full stop.
That doesn't make these novel charges legitimate, and it doesn't mean they'll survive appeal.
From https://time.com/6983196/donald-trump-convicted-hush-money-t...
From the moment Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced charges against Trump more than one year ago, people doubted his unconventional strategy.
“It cheapens the term election interference to call this election interference,” says Richard Hasen, a professor of law at UCLA. Jed Shugerman, a law professor at Boston University, called the case “an embarrassment” that pushed the boundaries of prosecutorial ethics.
It is not illegal to pay someone “hush money.” On its face, Bragg’s evidence pointed to 34 misdemeanor counts of falsifying business records, for all of which the statute of limitations had passed. Bragg’s novel approach bumped each of those misdemeanors up to first-degree felony charges by alleging they were all committed to bolster another crime related to violating election laws, but Bragg didn’t have to prove that second crime.
Michael Cohen was already convicted and went to jail on essentially the same charges of hiding illegal campaign contributions.
From https://abcnews.go.com/US/new-york-election-law-center-trump...
Prosecutors allege that Trump falsified the records to hide a violation of New York Election Law Section 17-152 – a rarely used law that prohibits groups from using unlawful means to influence an election.
Well I guess now that the gauntlet's been thrown they'll just have to pull up or shut up.