# 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:** 1\ **Showing post:** 3281
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2024, 1:13pm 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-30-2024/980953/3281 "2024-05-09T13:13:20Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > By inquiring, under oath and subject to the penalties of perjury, whether or not she is acting as spokeperson for Trump in return for any form of promised remuneration or benefit. > > And maybe further inquiring how she can come to believe things that are so obviously untrue. As with the 2020 “election fraud”, the things that wingnuts say on Fox News are usually radically different than what they say when confronted in court. Freedom of speech matters, but oftentimes truth matters even more. Criminal courts have jurisdiction over individuals when they are charged with an offence, either after indictment by a grand jury or whatever other process is set out by law. They also have jurisdiction when a person is subpoenaed. When a person is subject to the court’s jurisdiction by either of those processes, they may potentially be subject to contempt proceedings, for disobeying the court’s process, disrupting, and so on. There is also a type of contempt that goes by various names, for actions committed outside of court. I have no idea how that works in the US and in the different states. However, when a person is charged with contempt, the onus, as with other criminal counts, is on the state to prove it. What the criminal courts don’t have is a power to call people in, put them under oath, and interrogate them. There is a historical precedent for that type of proceeding, called the “oath ex officio” or the great oath. It was used by the ecclesiastical courts in England, and by the Court of Star Chamber. The abuse of the oath ex officio was one of the contributing factors in the political crises that led to the English Civil Wars. The abuse of the oath led to the abolition of Star Chamber in 1640, and the abolition of the Court of High Commission (also called the Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes), originally in 1641, and then finally in the Bill of Rights, 1688, after James II revived it. The abuse of the oath ex officio was one of the contributing factors to the development of the legal and constitutional right to silence, which Ms Habba could invoke if called to court. > **[Ex officio oath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_officio_oath)** > > The ex officio oath developed in the first half of the 17th century (1600 to 1650), and was used as a form of coercion, persecution, and forcible self-incrimination in the religious trials of that era. It took the form of a religious oath made by the accused prior to questioning by the Star Chamber, to answer truthfully all questions that might be asked.\[citation needed\] It gave rise to what became known as the cruel trilemma where the accused would find themselves trapped between a breach Out... > **[Court of High Commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_High_Commission)** > > The Court of High Commission was the supreme ecclesiastical court in England, from the inception of King Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy in 1534 to 1689, with periods of time where there was no court activity, like in 1641, when Parliament disbanded the court with the Triennial Act. John Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury, obtained increased powers for the court by the 1580s. He proposed and had passed the Seditious Sectaries Act 1593, making Puritanism an offence. > The court reached the height... [https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th\_century/england.asp](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp) --- _[View the full topic](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)._