I hope the pre-sentence report includes the fact that Trump has threatened Merchan and other judges involved in his trials. Trump especially warned Merchan of the dire consequences if he’s sent to jail.
An ordinary mobster making those kinds of threats might never see the light of day. For Trump, it’s just routine.
I also hope it includes a list of all the other dishonesty type offences he has committed, while this might be a first criminal offense (offence?), it’s hardly the first time he’s been held to account for being dishonest.
I guess then they’ll be tasked with investigating several thousand troll/shitposting/sarcastic/MAGA bullshit postings this week.
I hope Trump has enough money.
If judge Merchan has to send a letter to all the lawyers on the case informing them that on June 9th a user claiming to be a juror’s cousin posted allegations on the website straightdope.com, then yeah they’re getting a knock at the door.
Likewise once a judge in the highest profile case in US history has to send a letter about your dumb Facebook post (which is what triggered this whole affair) then, yeah, I’m sure he’s had a chat with new Yorks finest. At the very least someone at NYPD has produced a warrant for Facebook to give them their real identity, and done a quick search to see if there is anything linking him to a juror IRL.
I would expect so. Different jurisdiction aside, in the Rust armorer/movie shooting case the prosecution presented post conviction jail recordings to the judge which were acknowledged to be a factor in the sentencing.
Semi-related (to the situation as a whole): It’s far too late now, but I wish it would have been referred to as something other than the “hush money case”. NY Fraud Trial, Falsified Business Records case, Cooked Books Trial etc would’ve been better.
I talk to one of my sisters from time to time about politics and mostly just when she has a question about something in the news since she knows I’ve been following these cases. I generally don’t talk to either of my republican parents about anything political, especially not something as charged as Trump. My parents aren’t MAGA and they can both think critically and are open to being corrected, however, they get a lot of their news from Fox, so there’s that.
A few days ago my sister was talking to them about the Hush Money case. According to her, their issue is that it’s not illegal to sleep with a pornstar and it’s not illegal to pay hush money so they don’t understand why he was found guilty. My response to her [my sister], keeping in mind she as left as I am, but simply doesn’t keep up with politics enough to speak/correct someone about something like this was “They’re absolutely correct, it’s entirely legal to sleep with a porn star and it’s entirely legal to pay her to keep her mouth shut about it. That’s what an NDA is. However, it’s not what the case was about…” and then I went on to explain what he was actually tried for and found guilty of and reminded her (not in an accusatory way, but rather a ‘you can say this to them’ way) that “this is all public information, you can go online and look at the actual court papers and see what he was being tried for”.
Interestingly another of their issues was that none of these were felonies. That, I assume, is a Fox thing. Why would you argue both that that he was charged for something that isn’t illegal AND that what he was charged for isn’t a felony? It’s like they’re getting little bits of correct information here and there, but not enough to understand that they don’t connect. So that prompted further discussion about why the misdemeanor charges were bumped up to felonies.
I don’t know if the right or left is responsible for calling it a hush money case, but it’s making it really easy for the right to send out misinformation to people that aren’t going to dig any deeper than what they see on RW media.
It also dawned on me that sleeping with Stormy and paying her to keep quiet are good IRL examples of a MacGuffin. It kicked off the whole thing but it’s ultimately unimportant. He could have used that $130k for any number of other things and still been in the exact same predicament.
Actually no. It was the fact that the $130 was spent to keep her quiet because of the upcoming election which made it election interference that kicked it up to a felony. That and the tax evasion aspect of cooking the books to pay back Cohen. That kicked it up to a felony as well. There was a third thing that they did that also kicked it up to a felony but I can’t remember what it was.
In fact that’s why Judge Merchan told the jury they didn’t have to be unanimous on which of the multiple things were done that kicked it up to a felony, they just had to unanimously agree that at least one thing was done.
And I agree wholeheartedly that calling it the “hush money case” sucks. It’s not. It’s the tax evasion, election interference, something something case.
I agree with Joey_P, but I think you’re both pretty much saying the same thing.
Let’s take Stormy Daniels out of the story and say it’s a former The Apprentice staffer that has a recording of Trump using the N-word (1). In order to keep this staffer from releasing the recording before the election, they pay him $130k. Everything else – Michael Cohen’s involvement, the checks signed by Trump, all of it – is the same.
The story, now missing the titillating details of sex with a pawn star, probably doesn’t get as much press, but what he did is still a crime.
(1) I remember there being speculation in October of 2016 that such a recording existed and would be released.
THAT would have been news!
He failed to report it as a campaign contribution which was a violation of campaign finance laws.
And it was a campaign contribution because it was money paid in furtherance toward his campaign, just like buying an ad spot or renting out a venue for a speech.
It’s unfortunate that this was the only trial that will take place before the election because it was the easiest one to spin. It was promoted, at least on all the major TV news organizations, as a “hush money” trial which it wasn’t. It was a case that was complicated and nuanced. Most media and the general public don’t do complicated and nuanced. So it was dumbed down for engagement purposes. It won’t make any difference for Trump voters and may even bring in some of those undecideds who think he is being unfairly treated for sleeping with a porn star. Like I said, unfortunate.
You’re going to have to be more specific on all of those. And calling it the hush money trial is a lot better than, for instance, calling it the porn star trial. I’m glad the media settled on the name they did.
And it will drive away a lot more independents unwilling to vote for a convicted felon. Which is why Trump’s campaign is not happy with the result.
You don’t think there’s another way to spend $130k that in and of itself is legal, but when looking at a bigger picture would be considered election interference?
Those were just some quick examples I thought of. My point was that this trial is being referred to by an aspect of it that’s not actually illegal.
It would be like someone complaining about being in jail because they were driving with their wipers on a bright sunny day. Sure, maybe they were driving with their wipers on even though it wasn’t raining, but that leaves out the fact that the reason they’re actually in jail is because they were drunk driving. The wipers just happen to be what caught the cop’s attention.
That’s kinda the point I’m making. It’s very easy for misinformed or under informed people to not understand why he was found guilty of paying hush money. Even if they think he’s innocent, at least most people won’t think “falsifying business records? I don’t think that’s even illegal.”
I dunno, wouldn’t have changed anything for me.
The thing is, we know Trump knew what he was doing was wrong, or he wouldn’t have tried to hide it. We know he tried to hide it because he paid way MORE than 130K$ to accomplish it.
And my point is, there are multiple Trump trials that involve fraud in New York, and falsifying business records, and cooked books. To refer to this trial, you need something more specific. The hush money and the presence of Stormy Daniels are really the only ways to identify this one.
There is a lively discussion going on over at Wikipedia on this very issue.
The article is currently named:
There was a proposal to rename it to “Trump hush money trial”. That got voted down as inaccurate:
Now there’s a proposal to rename it “Conviction of Donald Trump for falsification of business records”, but the problem is to find a name that is not too long, but doesn’t overlap with the Trump Org getting convicted for false business records, or Trump & Spawn getting found civily liable for false business records.
You know, once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, we never had to face these thorny issues about how to distinguish all of the court cases about a dishonest presidential candidate…
Perhaps “Donald Trump’s NY Election Interference Case”.
As distinct from his NY organizational fraud, and his criminal interference cases in OTHER states. 
But yeah, with this much crimin’ going on, it’s hard to narrow what section of the Trump swamp it’s in, as all the various toxic oozes and filth merge together while he wallows in it.
But he wasn’t charged or convicted with election interference. That was the underlying “other offence” that made it a felony, but he was convicted of falsifying business records.