The “concern” expressed in the editorial seems to be the possibility that a juror may decide that these are picayune legal errors, and so they may not convict donald since they won’t be convinced that he was falsifying the repayments in furtherance of an actual crime.
Of course, jurors are given the law by the judge, in the form of jury instructions. If those instructions tell them that monkeying with taxes is criminal, then the jurors are going to accept that.
My expectation, as I think about it, is that the DA will paint an effective picture of donald, in the lead up to the 2016 election, playing dirty tricks to win. These won’t be technicalities that he’s trying to conceal; it will be election fraud. As long as there’s some statute that the government gives them, I anticipate that they’ll be happy to apply it to his conduct.
It occurs to me that the worst possible scenario is that this is the only trial that concludes before the election, and the Orange One is found not guilty on whatever technicality. He’ll claim it’s “proof” that all the other charges are “rigged”, despite the fact that his guilt is pretty much a slam-dunk in all of them (unless Aileen “Loose” Cannon engages in her usual antics, but even that would be overturned on appeal).
IOW, a “not guilty” verdict here would a really, really major campaign tool for him.
Maybe in the past, but no more. First of all the old grey WSJ has gone very conservative, next- it is a editorial, thus opinion.
Id rather think they make a mistake- perhaps on purpose, than think the DA did, after all they arent legal experts.
ALSO iirc, trump tried to dismiss this, and the Judge said Nope, so the judge also thinks that the DA has a legit legal case. (That doesnt mean the Judge thinks trump is guilty, it just means than on the face of it, the case is legal enough to proceed.)
I’m going to disagree with this Brad Smith fellow, here.
The underlying obligation - the need to silence Stormy Daniels - was created precisely because of Donald’s campaign for president.
As I cited upthread, Stormy first went public with the incident years earlier, to In Touch magazine. Michael Cohen, at that time a loyal Trump lieutenant, threatened to sue, and that was all that was needed to silence the story. In fact, the threaten to sue tactic was a common modus operandi to that point.
It was only when donald decided to run for president that an aggressive “catch and kill” campaign went into effect.
That’s why having Pecker and McDougal (the other mistress) testify is important- they will demonstrate that the agreement with Stormy was part of an ongoing effort to silence damaging information in the run up to the election.
In fact, I predict that Cohen is going to say that the reason that donald repaid him while acting as president is because donald tried to delay payment until after the election, which (in his mind) would have made it unnecessary.
This entire scheme was solely done to help win the election.
Yes. And the alleged intention was to deprive voters of information that might drive their vote.
Or as Trump would call it: “election interference”, only this time, without the quotation marks.
Is there anything Trump can do that will cause a mistrial?
The calculus being that he then dares the judge to meangingfully sanctuon him (jail) before the election…
He may be wondering if feigning his own illness would work, but I think not. He needs to get a few of his attorneys sick. Unfortunately for Trump, the time for superspreader events seems to have passed. Maybe he can give them some extremely bad chicken salad for lunch.
Then he needs a very Trumpy doctor to say recovery will take months.
If he gave a flying fuck about his wife he wouldn’t be porking porn stars while she was having his child. Not that I have a lot of sympathy for the golddigger- I don’t really care, do you?
That’s why it has to be a lawyer. If Roy Cohn, and the doc who diagnosed Trump’s draft-exemption heel spurs, were still around, Donald might have a real opportunity here.
A little more seriously, this next is Florida, but might it suggest a path?
Taking the rule literally, It appears that, in Florida, if you want a new judge, and are willing to accept the punishment for contempt, all you have to do is keep on insulting the judge. Trump knows how to do that.
I think a new judge, in the middle of the trial, means a mistrial.
IANAL, but it’s my limited understanding that a defendant generally can’t cause a mistrial and if they do something that biases the jury against them it’s their own fault. I wouldn’t be surprised if Loser Donald tried something anyway, but the most likely result would probably be that he gets to watch the trial on TV from another room.
Anecdotally, I recall a trial in San Diego in the '90s where a man was charged with fatally stabbing a young boy in a public shower stall at the beach. While his lawyer was trying to enter his plea of not guilty, the defendant stood up and confessed to the entire crime out loud in court and on live TV. The judge then entered a not guilty plea on his behalf and proceedings continued.
To be clear, that Florida rules says that the judge must disqualify herself from the hearing on whether the defendant committed contempt when the contempt charge involves disrespect to that judge.
It doesn’t require the judge to recuse themselves from the case.
In the light of day, it occurs to me that Michael Cohen has already pleaded guilty to the campaign finance violations that correspond to this election interference.
So when the Wall Street Journal writes an editorial that doubts that New York DA Alvin Bragg can establish the underlying crime that the falsified records furthered, the easy answer is to refer back to Individual-1, the un-indicted co-conspirator in Cohen’s criminal case. Although he also pled to other charges, Cohen was guilty of one count of causing a campaign finance violation and one count of making a campaign finance violation (both punishable by up to 5 years in prison)
Yes! I don’t have your expertise, but that was my reaction to the WSJ editorial—a raised eyebrow and the thought, “Wait a minute! Wasn’t an underlying crime already proven beyond a reasonable doubt in Cohen’s trial?”
I realize the charges aren’t identical, but the underlying crime is not some far-fetched daydream of the DA. Somebody already went to jail for it.
Same difference, though. He was convicted of the crimes.
I’m not a New York lawyer, and haven’t looked at the particular statute being referenced, but that editorial noted that Bragg doesn’t have to charge the underlying crime, he just has to establish that it existed. Here, I’m thinking that he may be able to do that by just pointing to Cohen’s conviction, then extrapolate it to donald by virtue of their frequent discussions of the matter (i.e. Cohen and donald were in regular communication about the payoff, including Donald’s instructions about when it should be made. Cohen went to prison for doing this, since it violated federal campaign finance laws. If you, the jury, believe that donald knew about, and assisted with, this scheme, you can presume that any falsified records were done in furtherance of that crime)