This whole case seems similar to the Monica Lewinsky scandal with Bill Clinton. In both cases, there is a President who is just trying to avoid bad publicity. There was consensual sex , and the President denied it. (And --worse than Trump–Clinton lied about it under oath. )
Sure, in Trump’s case, the publicity-avoidance happened before an election, so you can say he was trying to influence the election. But , duh, that’s what every politician does before every election–hide your dirty laundry.
Paying money to Stormy Daniels was entirely legal. Hiding it with 34 checks to a sleazy lawyer is not legal…but it is also not an attack on the entire process of democracy
Trump has done many such attacks… the false accusations of voting fraud, the Jan 6 demonstration, etc. Trump should go to jail for those.
But paying a porn star is pretty small potatoes in comparison.
Bill Clinton would not have hesitated to pay off Monica Lewinsky, if she had demanded it. And he would have hidden the payments, too.
And–here’s the point–I wouldn’t care if Clinton had done so. And most of the American public also wouldn’t care.
I hope this case helps in the downfall of Trump, because all attempts to nail him on the really important issues have failed…
Actually, the crux of the case is that hiding it by falsifying business records IS, in fact, illegal in the State of New York.
I realize such a charge is not as sexy as, say, treason or shooting someone on 5th Avenue, and forensic accounting not the stuff of TV or movie drama, but in the real world it’s one of the things that removes bad actors from circulation.
But we should have cared, and I think a lot more people would care now.
Comparing Clinton and Trump is difficult because the former didn’t come from money and actually succeeded on merit, but as soon as he started using his position and power to abuse women he became a PoS worthy of punishment. I’m not saying the Starr investigation was wholesome, but once it uncovered Clinton being a PoS, Democrats were wrong to continue to defend him.
Having bad sex with a porn star wasn’t Trump’s most egregious offense, but we need to stop powerful men from abusing women and then using their wealth and position to get away with it. I think the Al Capone analogy is apt. And covering up your abuse of women in order to become president is absolutely a big deal.
Sex with the President when he wants it, when you’re just a young intern and he’s President, is hardly consensual just based on the power imbalance IMHO, but I get that this isn’t your main concern.
He did it to hide a scandal from the public. That is a big deal, and just because it’s become commonplace doesn’t mean it isn’t a big deal. To use an extreme example-people get hit by crs all the time. That doesn’t mean that getting hit by a car isn’t a big deal.
While in no way condoning what happened between Clinton and Lewinsky, I think Lewinsky was far more damaged by the press/media/public scorn than what occurred between the two participants in fellatio.
I do think Clinton should have been punished for lying under oath, but that’s now water under the bridge.
Trump never lied under oath about having sex with Daniels. Just giving her money was not illegal. What was illegal was disguising that as something it wasn’t in official records. If found guilty then Trump should be appropriately punished in accordance with New York State law.
(I realize there are issues around just how consensual sex was between Daniels and Trump, and possible issues if the exchange is construed as sex for money, but that is not what is at issue in this court case.)
Huh. I was not aware that he had any consequences. OK.
He may not suffer much for falsified business records (although maximum penalty is 4 years in jail and $5k in fines I doubt he’d get maximum even if convicted) but if he doesn’t learn to STFU in regards to the gag order he may yet wind up in jail for violating that.
Trump may be the only person whose skin tone won’t clash with an orange jumpsuit. I would not be upset to see this proven true.
The Stormy case is making Trump appear in public in a very uncontrolled and unflattering way where he is required to keep his anus-mouth silent while people are saying bad things about him, right in front of him. This is making him look weak and feeble, which may be peeling away some voters in key states. If the only result is a Biden re-election, that’s a big enough deal for me.
No it wasn’t! The whole reason Trump faces a felony charge is because he was cooking the books to hide an illegal campaign contribution. When Cohen paid Daniels, to benefit the campaign, he was engaged in election fraud.
That’s not an apt analogy. Trump never paid Daniels. Other people did so for him.
That should be concerning. To use Bill Clinton…imagine if the heirs to WalMart (an Arkansas company) had spent $100 million running around the country paying hush money to people to ensure that none of his political scandals saw the light of day.
Would Clinton be indebted to those people? Would the public even be aware that he owed such favors?
And what if it was more serious than sexual indiscretions? Is there any bad behavior you wouldn’t want covered up before an election with payoffs? Does it matter if a candidate has killed a man? Should we care to know about such things?
At what point have we just abdicated free and fair elections altogether?
I think a better punishment would be to keep him locked overnight up between trials dates and let him loose to further break crimes on the days they don’t have court (like weekends and Wednesdays). Then he couldn’t give daily updates to his stooges each day, without going through his lawyers.
It would have been legal if he had just paid her with his own money. Which is somthing Trump just never seems to want to do. His thing is about using money other than his own to pay for everything. He can’t just help himself from turning everything into shady business, as he thinks that is the only way to get and stay rich.
It’s a sad, pathetic way to live when your only enjoyment in life is pulling a fast one on somebody else so that you can gloat to your buddies about how smart you are for doing so.
Of course my thoughts don’t matter. The question is “do American voters think this is a big deal?”
Democrats seem to think that if Trump broke the law, and faces more consequences, this will cause many people to view him more negatively. The good news is that this is true. The bad news is that most of these people are Democrats already.
This could certainly hurt Trump with regard to, say, women or evangelicals. In theory. But in practice, it does not seem to have had a massive effect. Of course it is early days, but people who support Trump have already swallowed much worse.
The case is based on one crime being committed in furtherance of another. Seems complicated to convince a jury of the furtherance part. Apparently they didn’t even charge the first crime as a misdemeanor so if the jury isn’t convinced about the second one he walks scot free. Sounds like the prosecution is gambling, and so far there’s grounds for appeal even if he is convicted. I don’t see Trump losing out short term, conviction or not it’s not going to change minds. If you can ignore everything known about Trump already and vote for him the result of this trial won’t change your mind.
yes, I agree with you, and don’t mind broadening my OP–so let’s make predictions about any actual consequences that might come from the trial…
We here at the Dope are all excited about it…the original thread has 4000 posts.
But outside of the NY Times and Msnbc, the rest of America seems to think the trial is no big deal.
My prediction: a hung jury
There will be one person who will think, “yeah, there’s is technically a bit of accounting fraud stuff here, but not enough of a big deal to enter the history books and put a President in jail. And besides, it isn’t serious enough for me ruin my life over, get chased by reporters and go into hiding from all the fanatic 2nd-Ammendment Magats,”
Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison on eight counts, at least one of which was specifically for aiding Trump in paying off Stormy Daniels.
Where’s the deterrent effect if only the lackeys are held responsible but not the boss?
This hypothetical juror would need to realize that this crime was commited before he was President or even President elect, and that he is not a President now. And that there is not (or should not) be a second set of laws for former Presidents.
I would like to think that the jury was properly vetted and people wjho thought that way were removed from the jury pool.
In one regard I think Trump may be correct in one aspect, the jury is made up of people from New York who know full well who Donald Trump is and how he operates. That leads me to think that the jury will not be hung.