(https://www.npr.org/2023/04/04/1167708172/trump-c…)
You can read the indictment and statement of facts above.
The 34 charges are counts of maintaining false business records in relation to check information and general ledger transactions at Donald Trump's revocable trust. These are misdemeanor charges which can be upgraded to felonies if tied to an election law violation.
A few observations:
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Businesses have incorrect records all the time, and even deliberately incorrect ones, but they are rarely targeted for such things. That idea on its own is not worth prosecuting unless paired with something else like defrauding customers, vendors, or business partners.
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It's odd to say that transactions are in an attempt to influence an election when a person would have a strong interest in making the transaction for their own personal life. If any businessperson had been caught up in such a scandal, they would have been willing to pay for their counterparty's silence, and it isn't clear that Donald Trump only made this transaction because of the election.
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American Media, LLC, the entity with David Pecker and The National Enquirer, is also accused of falsifying business records and is based in Manhattan, but has not been charged criminally by Alvin Bragg, despite the fact that American Media is also based in Manhattan, NY and would be within his purview. If they actually made the illegal payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, why would you not go after them as well? There isn't a non-prosecution agreement with the New York City court system, so there's no reason to treat them with kid gloves if illegal payments were made.
Summary: This is a highly repetitive set of charges based on the weak argument that the payments were a violation of state election laws. It's weird that David Pecker is not also being targeted in this. As a left-of-center person in the United States, I find this to be a rather weak case for the prosecution.
This will be fun to watch unfold. Why Democrats think this is going to hurt Trump I have no idea, they clearly didn't learn the first time that giving him air time and ammo of "the machine" coming after him is only a net benefit. He's already isolated himself more compared to the last election by not being active on Twitter, so why give him air time and a cause to raise off of? Given that even if he faced prison time it can't prevent him from running again, this seems incredibly short-sighted looking from the perspective of someone who doesn't support Trump.
I agree. A person charged with a felony can still run for president. It’s not like it eliminates him from political contention. It does keep his name in the news constantly for the next few years which is huge for him
Chris Rock said this. He said - "what are you doing arresting him - you're making him more famous!!!!!"
Majority of these charges are predicated on one presuming the next. They went with 34 to try and simply throw spaghetti at the wall to see if anything sticks. IMO, it won't. So many cracks in the armor like how Daniels got her repayments racked up to over $600k today at the same time by the ninth circuit who we know never liked Trump. Then there's Cohen who's a convicted perjuror so that's not a valid witness if I were an attorney. They're trying to schedule things for January (even though they could proffer for a stay to push it), aka confirmation time which is fishy as hell (gee, what other disaster happened during the time of the last confirmation that they still won't shut up about?). The DA illegally releasing the indictment docs before the court hearing. Etc. This is nothing but political sniping attempts in my eyes.
My money is on no conviction given the shaky/shady circumstances, but not to say he might not go out and actually do something later.
In my view, it’s highly weird that they aren’t going after American Media if this is a grand conspiracy, weird that the charge that upgrades this stuff to felonies was not disclosed (not that it had to be, but it ought to have been), and weird that Bragg’s office and family have repeatedly improperly leaked information about the case.
There's also a lot shade on the fact these should be misdeamenor charges but were upgraded to the lowest level felony class. I'd love to see his team find collusion with the media and start nailing people to the wall for RICO. But I bet all of us also want to be nailing supermodels, so take that for what it is. Not to mention another blow-up in their face is even if he's convicted of state felonies, he can still run. DUN DUN.
And then, guess what? As soon as he gets re-elected if that's the case, he "retires" and his VP who takes his place pardons him and they dos-di-dos and switch places with Trump back in with a legal cleansheet? That would not be a fun time to be someone in his characterization hunting crosshairs...
I actually like the discussion going on here on this thread posts. Let’s keep up the intellectual discussions.
Question for people - is this political sniping(as mentioned earlier)?
What are the benefits for Bragg by involving Trump? Politically motivated?
I am also quite curious - if campaign finance laws were violated, why isn’t the DOJ involved given that it’s federal and not national?
Someone correct my info or context of my questions as needed. I’m not well-read enough on politics, but curiosity is biting me on what’s been going on. Like many others, I’m not well versed. So I’m here to learn.
My read on the situation is that the entire reasoning for going after him is to publicly shame and discredit him before the elections in 2024 in an effort to take him off the board. I don’t think anything ultimately ends up happening and he certainly won’t serve any jail time.
Ultimately, both sides of the isle are so dirty that taking Trump down would require them to take out some of their own and open up their closets which are full of skeletons. At the end of the day I don’t see anyone opening themselves up to any meaningful level of scrutiny to actually nail him.
I hope I’m wrong and in that event I want the net result to be taking as many of these clowns down on both sides of the isle.
Yeah I’ve been wondering too how much of this is “normal” for major politicians. Like if all the laws were applied evenly to both parties with perfect evidence who all would be convicted.
I’m just spitballing here but I’d think about half of them would probably go down and possibly more. These guys on both sides of the isle are no better than snake oil salesman who hide behind the guise of politics.
I think if you threw the average person in a room with someone from another country they’d be able to hammer out 90% of the worlds issues (exceptions being things like bilateral trade agreements).
del
I would argue that politicians are above the law and the idea that they’re public servants is a joke. They can get DUIs, set up high paying jobs for kids/relatives, facilitate business deals that will benefit them after they leave office, insider trade, etc. while espousing how Wall St and Corporate America are corrupt. The fact that a guy like Santos got as far as he did is symbolic of the number of clowns we have on both sides of the isle. The only politician that I can think about whose actually gotten punished in my lifetime (born in late 90’s) is Blagoavic. With the exception of trying to sell a Senate seat I would not be surprised if a handful of people in office now are using his methods for personal benefit today.
One Personal Anecdote: A family friend of mine was a high ranking government official who killed someone because they were drunk driving a government vehicle, then obstructed the investigation and lied to police, and refused to answer questions about the situation very publicly. All of his claims were disproven with concrete evidence and his punishment was to spend two weeks in rehab and he got reassigned to a higher ranking job in a different branch of the government with a salary bump.
Curious how do you believe this helps the Republican Party?
Personally, I think they’re stuck in a death spiral around identity politics and pandering to rural America.
What about the bank, insurance and tax fraud related to his property business? Why was he never charged on that given that these seem like more serious crimes - and far easier to verify?
It’s worth noting that the Trump Organization and Alan Weisselberg have been found guilty of various financial crimes.
If you think trump was indicted without an airtight case being ready….you are mistaken
New York state has an ~70% conviction rate on charges, and felonies have a similar number. Your point is well taken. I think the non-prosecution of American Media, the precedent of the exoneration of John Edwards under worse circumstances, the vagueness of the upgrade charge in the initial indictment, and the fact that the upgrade charge is likely to be state election law against a federal candidate when the DOJ has already quit prosecuting the target on this matter make this a weaker case.
These are Republican talking points whether you realize it or not. DOJ is more concerned with the attempted coup and election conspiracy fraud that trump tried to pull. Edwards didn’t falsify business records or involve with third parties to the same extent. There’s also multiple women AND his bastard child. There’s also no telling whether or not AMI is also going to be investigated.
I needed a laugh this morning, thank you!
It's airtight just like the Russian collusion, 2 impeachments, the DOJ case that already investigated him for campaign finance, etc., etc. It definitely has nothing to do with the DA in question having literally run on the platform that he would indict Trump 😂
Frankly I'd love to see him get indicted for something that actually matters, like say, the war crimes he committed and proceeded to hide from the American public by making it so the CIA could get away with less reporting on civilian deaths caused by drone strikes. But then that would open the door to all the living Presidents being taken down because in reality, they're all blood-soaked criminals. But no, instead they come at him with a rock-solid case of him indirectly paying off a stripper claiming the only reason he would have possibly done so was to protect his election campaign, not say hide it from his wife, his family, or to protect his public image.
You're not very smart, are ya
These people did God's work by introducing me to Stormy. A rare gem from a generation past
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