Grand Jury to hear evidence against Trump, weigh potential charges

Politics & Elections
21

Interesting article here:

The problem is that complexities can open the door to potential defenses in a criminal trial. Putting aside the enormous task of collecting, analyzing and summarizing all of the documents (a job that the Manhattan DA’s office has wisely outsourced to an expensive consulting firm), the prosecution must also prove criminal intent, which can be challenging when the target heads a large organization. In fact, the typical defense offered by tax evaders — “my accountants prepared my returns and I just signed them” — hasn’t gone unnoticed by Trump, who has already pointed out that his tax returns were prepared by “among the biggest and most prestigious law and accounting firms in the U.S.” It could be a heavy lift to convict a former president of any kind of business fraud when he has surrounded himself with lawyers and accountants.

That is why the cooperation of those same lawyers and accountants can be essential to obtaining a criminal conviction. Michael Cohen, Trump’s convicted former attorney, is enthusiastically cooperating against his former boss, and there is immense pressure on Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, to do the same. But both men come with considerable baggage — Cohen is a convicted felon, and Weisselberg is under investigation of allegations of tax misdeeds of his own — that might impair their credibility at trial.

However, I have no doubt that when the indictments hit, the GOP- which calls itself the “party of law & order”- will dismiss the charges as a bogus witchhunt.

22

Triggered Snowflake is triggered:

“This is purely political, and an affront to the almost 75 million voters who supported me in the Presidential Election, and it’s being driven by highly partisan Democrat prosecutors,” Trump said in a statement.

23

Thanks for that, that was indeed my point that the trial jury just needs one person unmoved by evidence.

I think there is a reasonable chance that Donnie gets indicted, given that the grand jury need not be unanimous and the nature of the proceedings. But unless they can flip Weiselburg, the ignorance defense will probably save the day for him.

The grand jurors are making huge personal sacrifices. Looks like they’re going to lose a good deal of income for their public service. Do they attempt to hold hearings in the evenings so that those that work during the day can at least keep food on the table?

24

The only person I’ve known who served on a criminal grand jury was a co-worker; the jury met in the daytime, but he was paid his regular salary by our company (as I was whenever I was called for regular jury duty). This was in California, so obviously a different jurisdiction. And I don’t know how it would work for folks not in a regular salaried job.

25

No, they let people in that situation decline grand jury service. In New York, financial hardship is even considered for potential petit jurors.

26

Yes, I served on the GJ and got paid FT. I missed about a day and a half of work a week. My Employer supported on this me entirely.

27

Pfffffft. It’s a protection for those 71 million voters, you orange doofus, and for all other Americans as well.

If a crooked accountant defrauds a company, we don’t refrain from investigating and charging them because it might seem like an “affront” to the good judgement of the company they bilked and fooled. No, we say “Throw this cheating crook in jail so they can’t con somebody like that again”.

28

Glad to know the grand jurors aren’t going to face hardship. I served on a county jury once and got paid the princely sum of $15 a day. But my employer gave the choice of either giving them the jury pay and getting paid full time for the days without using vacation time, or use vacation time and pocket the jury pay.

29

Yeah, we got $40 per diem, which I had to give my employers back.

30

Even if a Trumper ended up on a trial jury, I’d be happy just to see people testifying under oath about the goings on in crooked Trumpworld. I’d pay for tickets to see them (both witnesses and Trumps) squirm.

31

A CNN panel (can’t find it) remarked how unusual it was for a NY grand jury to meet three days a week for months on end. Most are one or two days a week for a month or so, looking at a variety of offenses by a variety of people, or four or five days a week for a short period, essentially looking at one case.

Two speculations offered were they wanted possible flippers to stew in their own juices for a while or the TrumpCo books are just that complicated.

I’m remembering the disappointment of the Mueller outcome and trying not to get too excited this time.

32

What keeps me up at night is the thought that Weiselberg is soon to suffer an unnatural death, either by his own hand or someone in the evil empire. Take away his testimony, and Teflon Don will be nearly impossible to prosecute.

33

The case was Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. ____ (2020).

~Max

34

Mueller was stymied by the fact that the object of his investigation was in power and could prevent it from going forward, along with the inability to recommend charging a sitting president. I don’t think that the NY prosecutors will run into the same obstacles.

35

I did not mean that as a slam on Mueller at all. He was the investigator and unearthed plenty of evidence. After that it’s up to the prosecutor – Congress in this case – to decide what to do with it.

If you hire a PI and he discovers your spouse has been unfaithful many times it’s not his fault if you decide to not get a divorce.

36

As much as I want to see Trump in an ill-fitting orange jump suit I’m not expecting it to happen. There are too many ways for it to go wrong and he has too much wealth/power so he can delay everything to infinity.

37

Thank you, @Max_S. I did have the citation in front of me, but I didn’t include it because few are interested in that detail. Still, it’s a good practice. :slight_smile:

The unspoken dirty truth is, everyone is sick of Trump, Republicans included. But they are loathe to alienate their voters by speaking this truth and getting rid of him themselves. So they’re secretly quite happy to let New York prosecutors get rid of him for them. It allows them to do this – ¯_(ツ)_/¯ – while speaking to their voters, screaming “witch hunt!” in the lead-up to the mid-term elections, while New York cleans up their mess for them. They actually believe this is a winning strategy. (I hope they’re wrong, because if they’re not, this country is already over.)

I believe this underlying dynamic changes the calculus tremendously with respect to how successful these New York cases will be. No one is going to get in their way like Trump’s DOJ did to Mueller.

Trump doesn’t have enough wealth and power anymore to mount vigorous defenses to the many cases that are coming at him now. Has anyone even heard who his lawyer is for the Manhattan/New York State cases? The Georgia election interference case? I haven’t. Who wants him for a client?

One last point: The Manhattan/New York cases are paper cases. The numbers are right there in black and white. The prosecutor will present evidence in these stark terms by way of loan applications and tax returns, indicating differing amounts for each.

This will be the case irrespective of if Allen Weisselberg croaks. Weisselberg makes it easier because he can best narrate the cases for jurors, but the cases would by no means be lost if he suddenly became unavailable. He’s not the only witness who could provide narrative testimony. And in any event, the paper proves the legal violations.

Prosecutor: “Mr. Trump, is this your signature on this loan application, People’s Exhibit 631, indicating these amounts valued for purposes of obtaining a loan on Trump Tower 753?”

Trump: “Yes, but I just signed what my accountant told me to sign.”

Prosecutor: “Did you read the fine print here, where it says that you are personally responsible for the information provided, under penalty of perjury, irrespective of who assisted you to prepare the application?”

Trump: “Um, no. I just did what my accountant told me to do.”

Prosecutor: “Are you aware that your failure to read or comprehend this language does not constitute a defense to a violation of the fraud statutes?”

Trump: “Witch hunt!!”

Prosecutor: “I rest my case.”

Obviously the above is a very abbreviated personal dream scenario, but it is nonetheless the state of the law that ignorance of it is generally not a defense to it. No doubt you’re aware that every time you sign your tax return, you are advised that you are personally responsible for its contents, no matter who assisted you in the preparation. Trump is no different. Anymore.

38

And it very well may be. 75 million Trump voters may see it as clear evidence that there’s a cabal of New York Jew leftists bent on taking over the country, motivating them to vote in the midterms and solidify R control over the purple states that will decide the 2024 election.

39

I’m too jaded at this point to think there will be any meaningful repercussions for Trump, because he has gotten away with literally everything during his miserable life. I suspect he will die a free man, with a smile on his face, getting a blow job from an undercompensated prostitute.

I hope I am wrong.

40

Do you still think there are 75 million voters who support Trump today as they did in early November 2020? I don’t. Sure, those hard core Trump supporters will think exactly as you describe. But they are/were going to think that anyway, don’t you think?

Recent polls indicate that 53% of Republicans still view Trump as the “legitimate” president. But consider that only 24% of our citizens now affiliate as Republican. That means something slightly over 12% are with Trump to the death. It’s a large number of people, no doubt. But it’s far from an overwhelming majority.

Not only that, independents support the formation of a January 6th commission by a rather whopping margin. I don’t remember the exact percentage, but it was somewhere between 65-70%. Not to be sneezed at. Republicans need those independent votes. I don’t think the sympathies of independents currently lie with Republicans.

January 6th changed a lot of people’s minds about Republican affiliation and how they may vote. Take that together with Biden’s popular programs, and I think the mid-terms may not go as Republicans hope they will.

That doesn’t mean they won’t try to steal the outcome, just as they’re trying to do now. But it’s a really bad tactic, and a number Republicans have begun to notice the stench.