Of course not. I wasn’t suggesting otherwise. A cover up is a cover up. Even if it was done for reasons that don’t exist.
Fortunately, the Constitution make provision for the possibility of something interfering with a President’s ability to carry out the duties of the office. That’s what the VP is for.
As to political ramifications of being jailed, I think that the primary one is that it would be sharp enough to pierce the media bubble of a lot of voters. A lot of voters aren’t at the level of “Sure, Trump did things, but it’s OK”. They’re at the level of not knowing anything at all about any of this, because their carefully-curated “news” sources never tell them anything. But even Fox won’t be able to suppress news of him being jailed, and once people hear that, they’re going to be wondering why: Both why he was jailed, and why they never heard anything about the prospect of it before this.
I think it’s possible that Trump wanted to keep Melania from finding out about his infidelity for reasons other than protecting her feelings.
Their prenup could state that if they divorce without infidelity on either side (or on both sides), Melania gets $x. If there’s infidelity by Melania, she gets nothing. If there’s infidelity by Donald, she gets $x times 2. This fits my perception of him – that he cares more about money than the feelings of others.
Of course it doesn’t matter in the least since, as stated by others upthread, he can have more than one reason for falsifying the records.
But is knowingly signing the checks sufficient for a conviction? Were the checks themselves illegal, or is it only the entries in the ledger calling them legal fees that are the problem? In other words, is a valid defense that Trump knowingly signed checks to pay back Cohen (i.e., election fraud), but he had no idea that someone would record it as legal fees instead of as a reimbursement?
I’m open to correction, but I don’t think his perjury charge related to these payments. That was about artificially inflating the values of assets.
Signing the checks caused the falsified ledger entries.
And the argument is that donald signed checks purposefully, only when he was in agreement with the amount and purpose of the payment.
I do think the DA needs to show that donald knew the payments were for a different purpose than what they purported to be. They have to show that he did it to intentionally cover up the election fraud.
If Trump ever spends any time in the courthouse holding cell for contempt (which I’m pretty much convinced will never happen) I wonder how many memes referencing Cool Hand Luke we’re going to see.
Correct, he is in rikers due to lying about his knowledge about asset inflation.
If you are convicted in a criminal court of a crime, sentenced to prison and want to appeal do they let you go home until the appeals are done?
I thought if you were convicted and later sentenced to prison then you were marched straight to prison from the court room and had to do all your appeals from prison.
Thanks. As always, I very much appreciate your clarification. I won’t worry quite as much if Weisselberg doesn’t testify.
Every company I have ever worked for, cheques are never signed in isolation - they are always attached to a reason/explanation/payment slip/invoice or similar.
It would seem to me to be a far fetched explanation that something that requires his direct approval is just given as a cheque to sign without knowledge or explanation.
Right. That’s why I just don’t see a defense of “He was just protecting Melania” That just explains WHY he falsified the expenses.
The only defense (as stated above) is that he didn’t know what the expenses were for, he was just oblivious, he didn’t keep track of his business and every single person around him was keeping him in the dark about what the payments to Cohen were for - he had no knowledge of any of it.
IANAL but I’ve heard/read multiple times that once sentenced you begin to serve your sentence immediately, it does not hinge on whether an appeal is pending.
I mean, you can make multiple appeals for a single conviction, so deferring the sentence until an appeal is done just wouldn’t work. It would basically be a stay put of jail free card. (Well, not free potentially, but you get my point.)
This is pretty correct. Just adding re: the tax “fraud” - it’s fraud in a technical sense, but they fraudulently overpaid in taxes (paid on $400k’ish; not just $130k). Likely a reason why the trial is pushing the election related narrative/crimes and not any tax fraud - not that I’ve heard anyways but I’m not following too closely.
With that said, is this right? Is there a scenario where the State/IRS got underpaid?
Like everything else, it varies. A judge can have you remanded into custody upon conviction, upon sentencing, or upon finality of the appeals. New York might have a presumption one way or the other, but I’m not aware of it.
All Fox has to say is “fake president Biden puts your hero in jail to silence him” and no further explanation will be required for Trump’s moron base.
IANAL, but I think the “why” aspect is critical to the felony aspect. If he just tried to hide the sordid event from Melania (I wouldn’t call it an “affair”), that’s a misdemeanor on which the statute of limitations has expired anyway. If he did it in furtherance of another crime, namely election interference, then that’s a felony. Of course if Trump didn’t know or care about the purpose of the expenses he was signing for, that’s another matter, but no one’s going to believe that.
My understanding of the situation was that Cohen was paid an additional amount to cover income taxes on the $130K. The reason for this was because he was being paid the $130K as income instead of a loan repayment. (Which is more evidence of intent to defraud on Trump’s part. Why would he ever agree to do this if he weren’t trying to cover up the payment to Cohen and disguise it as legal expenses instead of a loan repayment?)
The rest of the money was a bonus.
In any event, the IRS would see the whole $400K+ as income. So Cohen would pay income taxes on the whole amount (or should have).
In my opinion, probably not a good idea in this case. The Defense is claims that Cohen is a criminal liar who is disgruntled against Trump. The Trump justice department putting Cohen away is entirely consistent with both of these. So the defense can use Trump having put him away as a reason for his disgruntlement while arguing that there is no comparability because unlike Cohen Trump isn’t guilty.
The MN QOP has announced that Loser Donald will be the keynote speaker at their annual dinner on May 17th.
You know, the same day that he bitched and moaned about needing off from court so he could attend “his” son’s graduation.
I certainly hope the judge has some very pointed questions for Don Snorleone tomorrow.
If the judge didn’t say anything beforehand, but Trump used the agreed time off for campaigning instead of the allowed purpose- would that be grounds for contempt?