I’m glad you found it helpful. 
Actually, I applauded it because I proofread transcripts for federal court reporters, and I’m quite familiar with the processes you described. It’s always a pleasure to see the often complex procedures of our legal system distilled so clearly and precisely.
You are obviously extremely detail oriented! And thank you for the kind words.
I sat through enough arraignments/prelims/motions/status conference hearings/trials, thousands of them. Legal procedure was my career, so it still comes easily enough. 
And there’s a lot of misunderstanding out there. I hope it helps folks who are less familiar with our legal system.
You poor thing. At least I get to sit home in my PJs and proofread the transcripts at my convenience (drafts in via email, pdfs of corrections back the same way) and not have to get dressed all court-formal and be civil with all participants.
Check your PMs.
There are literally tens of people out in the streets of NYC protesting for their hero.
Hypothetical question, if Trump argues in court that the payments was just to spare his wife from finding out about could that open the door for the prosecution to call Melania as a witness against her will even though she’s his wife?
Agreed. He’d revel in it.
Welp, it’s nearly 6 pm in NYC. Looks like we’re waiting for Wednesday.
I just pissed myself laughing!
I just heard a Guilianni lawyer doing a press conference. The lawyer used to represent Cohen, and was speaking after testifying today. I guess he had about two points. 1) Cohen paid off Daniels on his own. 2) Cohen is a lying, shitty witness.
(A liar, working in the Trump org.?? Get outta here!)
He did not have anything to say about Trump reimbursing Cohen for the payment to Daniels. I’m sure it just slipped his mind to mention that part.
Maybe.
But I’ve seen it happen a lot of times, that when a jury is close to a verdict (indictment in this case), if the choice is to stay another hour to finish up and then never have to come back or return on another day, they’ll take the extra hour every time.
I found it helpful, and I have a followup question (or you can correct me if how I frame my question is not even right).
I guess this is about prosecutorial discretion. First, the prosecutor decides there is probable cause to charge Trump with a crime. Then, he takes the evidence to a grand jury to get an indictment (apparently both good and bad evidence). Then, if a grand jury believes there is probable cause, there will be an indictment. Then…here’s my question…is the prosecutor compelled to bring the charges in the indictment? Or, is there still discretion to charge, some, none, all?
I’m not understanding exactly the grand jury process and if the prosecutor is working with the grand jury to formalize the charges or what.
You’ve got it mostly right. The prosecutor reviews the evidence and determines if it’s enough to empanel a grand jury. If yes, he presents his best case – not usually any “bad” evidence, just the “good” evidence – to see if his evidence at least meets this minimal threshold of probable cause.
Grand juries often do as a prosecutor asks, because the standard is so low: Only probable cause. You’ve certainly heard the old saw that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, and that’s largely true.
The prosecutor can then determine if he believes that on balance (“good” and “bad” evidence), his case will survive a much higher threshold in front of a jury: Beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecutor is legally bound to disclose any exculpatory evidence to the defense, meaning anything that would tend to exonerate the defendant. This could possibly be characterized as the “bad” evidence (if you’re a prosecutor).
The prosecution is not obliged to bring charges they don’t think they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt, so yes, the prosecutor has ultimate discretion to bring only charges he thinks he can make stick.
You can think of the grand jury process as sort of a pre-test of the prosecution’s best evidence. But the trial is the Ring of Fire.
Prosecutors mostly don’t want to fail or be accused of overcharging, so they are cautious in what they will bring as actual charges in the charging document.
TL;dr, yes, the prosecution has the final discretion to decide which charges to bring and which not, irrespective of what the grand jury determines.
I’m sure I’m still missing something, but the question I’ve always had is…why?
If the point of a trial is to determine whether or not someone is guilty of a given charge, why do we first have to decide if they might be guilty of it?
Presumably that doesn’t work the other way though. If the grand jury decides…I don’t even know what the proper phrasing here is. They decide that, what, there isn’t a case?
Let’s try that again. If the grand jury decides there’s probable cause to…proceed?..the prosecutor is not compelled to charge them with anything, right.
However, if the grand jury decides there isn’t probable cause, I assume the prosecutor can’t go ahead with the case anyway. Doesn’t that mean the grand jury effectively has the power to declare you not guilty? How does that not undermine the point of a trial?
Is this all akin to a judge asking a lawyer to prove the case has merit before they’ll let it proceed?
TLDR: I kinda understand what a grand jury does, but I don’t understand why it exists in the first place.
True. The prosecutor can’t move forward if the grand jury votes to not bring an indictment. We had a somewhat recent example of this in the case brought to prosecute former Assistant Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe. At least, we suspect this is what happened. Remember, grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret.
One reason is the secrecy aspect. Jury trials are usually open to the public. They are a matter of public record. So if a prosecutor doesn’t even have sufficient evidence to rise to the level of probable cause, then she has needlessly smeared an innocent person’s reputation by bringing weak charges. In this way, the grand jury process protects the innocent from being spuriously charged.
Another aspect is resources, time and energy. Trials are expensive. The time of jurors, lawyers and court staff is valuable. Don’t waste those resources on cases that can’t even overcome the probable cause threshold.
Hope this helps clarify the need for the process.
What the fuck happened to lawyer/client confidentiality? I haven’t seen a more vicious “Thrown under a bus” scenario since that one lady tried to get off while the vehicle was going down the freeway in “Speed”.
I think somehow Cohen gave that up. I don’t know how that works.
The privilege belongs to the client and the attorney cannot decide to violate it. So, there must have been something else, like the crime-fraud exception, or perhaps a third party who was part of the conversation.
I’m partial to the theory that Cohen became a target when Trump told a group of reporters that he (Trump) was innocent, go ask Michael Cohen (4-5-18). The FBI swooped in 4 days later.
Trump finally admitted the money came from him in August.
Just a reminder that this started with the Wall Street Journal:
… gosh, who owns that again?