# Manhattan Prosecutors file criminal charges for Trump re Stormy Daniels case - ongoing discussion here (Guilty on all 34 counts, May 30, 2024) **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [March 9, 2023, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953 "2023-03-09T22:53:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 56
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2024, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1101 "2024-03-28T02:44:40Z")
Yep, I see that now. Should’ve dug more before reposting from Boing Boing, which is a fun site but hardly a news agency. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2024, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1102 "2024-03-28T02:45:41Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Should’ve dug more before reposting from Boing Boing It embedded a link to the order! > **[NY v Trump Merchan gag order 2024.03.26](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24514876-ny-v-trump-merchan-gag-order-20240326)** ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2024, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1103 "2024-03-28T02:51:05Z")
Okay, **fine**. By “dug more” I guess I mean “read more than the first three paragraphs.” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2024, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1104 "2024-03-29T01:59:58Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > We already know that having a jury rule that Trump penetrated a woman’s vagina with an object or member is not a disaster. Has Trump won any elections since then? I’m talking about general elections not primaries. Jo Jorgensen and Howie Hawkins won primaries. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2024, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1105 "2024-03-29T14:42:47Z")
A sitting federal judge has commented on the gag order laid on Trump by Merchan. He thinks Merchan did the right thing. > **[Reggie Walton: Judge warns of Trump’s attacks in extraordinary rebuke | CNN...](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/03/29/politics/federal-judge-donald-trump-rebuke)** > > A sitting district judge on Thursday harshly criticized Donald Trump’s attacks on the judge overseeing the former president’s criminal case tied to alleged hush money payments, telling CNN that such statements threaten the viability of the American... ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2024, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1106 "2024-03-31T21:27:39Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > the judge and his family are not included in the gag order Has anyone said why both he and Engoron, explicitly ommitted themselves from the gag order? I assume that it has something to do with not wanting to issue a self-serving order, but I would think that given the number of contempt of court citations that have been given for simply being disrespectful of a judge, that issuing a warning not to threaten their daughter should be outside the realm of accepted protocol. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2024, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1107 "2024-04-01T05:04:39Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > Cohen was incarcerated. Is Trump less culpable? Narrowly speaking, yes. Wiki: Cohen was prosecuted in Federal Court and, "Pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges: five counts of tax evasion, one count of making false statements to a financial institution, one count of willfully causing an unlawful corporate contribution, and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution at the request of a candidate (Trump) for the “principal purpose of influencing [the] election”. Trump is being prosecuted in New York State court for… false business records in a private company owned by him. It’s technically a felony, but to me it smacks of misdemeanor. To my way of thinking this is the most dubious of Trump’s court battles. So yeah, what Trump is being prosecuted for is less serious than what Cohen was jailed for. If there’s a weightly criminial case against Trump in this matter, I say it’s at the Federal level or if it’s at the state level, it isn’t being prosecuted - Stormy allegedly encountered some hired toughs during her ordeal. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2024, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1108 "2024-04-01T06:55:10Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > The “I’ve said so many bad things about the judge that he’ll have to recuse himself” is a bold strategy. Let’s see if it pays off for him. Would that he got a weekend in the pokey for contempt instead. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2024, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1109 "2024-04-01T19:45:49Z")
looks like hope hicks may be a witness in the upcoming trial. [Hope Hicks Meets With Manhattan Prosecutors as Trump Inquiry Intensifies - The New York Times (nytimes.com)](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/nyregion/hope-hicks-trump-manhattan-prosecutors.html) ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1110 "2024-04-02T00:57:11Z")
The gag order has been expanded: > **[Judge expands Trump's gag order after ex-president's social media posts about...](https://news.yahoo.com/judge-expands-trumps-gag-order-001725793.html)** > > The judge in Donald Trump's hush-money criminal case on Monday declared his daughter off-limits to the former president’s rancor, expanding a gag order days after Trump assailed and made false claims about her on social media. Judge Juan M. Merchan... Isn’t it strange how Trump thinks everyone is someone else’s puppet? - Biden is Obama’s puppet to the point that Trump just says Obama now instead of Biden because that’s who is really in charge (and certainly not because his brain is turning into soup). - Judge Engoron (from the NY civil case) answers to his clerk, who is also Chuck Schumer’s girlfriend. - Fani Willis answers to her boyfriend/co-prosecutor so they can screw Trump over and get rich at the same time. - Judge Merchan is being controlled by his daughter, a Democrat operative. Trump really fervently believes that all of these powerful people have someone in the background pulling the strings. I wonder why that is? I wonder what in a Moscow hotel room could have ever happened to make Trump so sure that this is how the world works. The thought really seems to follow him around everywhere he goes, like an old-school KGB agent or something. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1111 "2024-04-02T01:16:53Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > Isn’t it strange how Trump thinks everyone is someone else’s puppet? If you have your Trump decoder ring handy, this is his way of screaming > [@](#): > > I don’t want to be Putin’s puppet anymore! (You get _one_ round of hookers sent to your Moscow hotel room, and they _never_ let you forget it) ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1112 "2024-04-02T02:37:44Z")
From the last link in the thread: > [@](#): > > This pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose,” Merchan wrote. So, attacking the prosecutor and judge does have a legitimate purpose? In the abstract, I can see attacking the judge and prosecutor as first amendment protected petitioning of government officials to redress a grievance. But aren’t most gag orders of this sort broad enough to forbid attacks on the judge and prosecutor, especially when they are, as here, transparent attempts to taint the jury poll? So — is Trump getting special treatment that we should be criticizing Judge Merchan for? Or is Trump being treated correctly, while other defendants are stripped of their first amendment right to insult judges? Here is an example of a broader gag put on a politician defendant, upheld on appeal: [United States v. Brown](https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-5th-circuit/1471474.html) ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1113 "2024-04-02T14:56:13Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > (You get _one_ round of hookers sent to your Moscow hotel room, and they _never_ let you forget it) The funny thing is that we now know that if such a tape existed and if it were released, it wouldn’t have mattered one bit. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1114 "2024-04-02T16:40:27Z")
I don’t think it exists. At least not the weird parts that were rumored. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1115 "2024-04-02T22:47:10Z")
Trump admitted the event happened. Shortly after taking office, he asked the heads of the CIA and FBI if they could find evidence of a recording. If the incident didn’t happen, no reason to ask if there were tapes. Self-incrimination. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1116 "2024-04-03T04:03:01Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > he asked the heads of the CIA and FBI if they could find evidence of a recording. Cite? First I’ve heard of this. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1117 "2024-04-03T04:10:58Z")
James Comey said in his book that Trump asked him to investigate the pee tape to “prove” it didn’t exist. I read the book. There are various references to this in The Hill and The Washington Post, but I don’t subscribe to either of those and the sites are paywalled. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1118 "2024-04-03T05:13:03Z")
The Hill isn’t paywalled ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1119 "2024-04-03T05:14:02Z")
Thanks - It really does make it look like some kind of Kompromat exists. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953/1120 "2024-04-03T05:15:44Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > The Hill isn’t paywalled It always was for me. Maybe that’s changed, but they conditioned me to not bother to try their links. Thanks for letting me know, though! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953.md?page=55) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/manhattan-prosecutors-file-criminal-charges-for-trump-re-stormy-daniels-case-ongoing-discussion-here-guilty-on-all-34-counts-may-30-2024/980953.md?page=57)