Full on banana republic. Democrats have no principles regarding the rule of law and Republicans are weak cowards for doing nothing about it.
CNN Senior Legal Analyst describes how the Trump conviction was a political hit job - full article
- "The judge donated money... in plain violation of a rule prohibiting New York judges from making political donations—to a pro-Biden, anti-Trump political operation."
- Alvin Bragg boasted on the campaign trail in an overwhelmingly Democrat county, “It is a fact that I have sued Trump over 100 times.”
- "Most importantly, the DA’s charges against Trump push the outer boundaries of the law and due process."
- "The charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor — in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere — has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever."
- The DA inflated misdemeanors past the statute of limitations and "electroshocked them back to life" by alleging the falsification of business records was committed 'with intent to commit another crime.'
- "Inexcusably, the DA refused to specify what those unlawful means actually were — and the judge declined to force them to pony up — until right before closing arguments. So much for the constitutional obligation to provide notice to the defendant of the accusations against him in advance of trial."
- "In these key respects, the charges against Trump aren’t just unusual. They’re bespoke, seemingly crafted individually for the former president and nobody else."
- "The Manhattan DA’s employees reportedly have called this the “Zombie Case” because of various legal infirmities, including its bizarre charging mechanism. But it’s better characterized as the Frankenstein Case, cobbled together with ill-fitting parts into an ugly, awkward, but more-or-less functioning contraption that just might ultimately turn on its creator."
Respectfully asking you to keep all the rage focused on one thread instead of spamming multiple ones.
For the benefit of those of us who care for neither of the parties or candidates.
Different threads are talking about different points or being blocked entirely from getting bumped. Respectfully, you're free to not comment at all and thus not bump the post.
Diff threads talking about the same dumpster fire, like y'all (and I really mean all) have anything more than buzzwords and regurgitated talking points. Nuance is long dead. I'd think about taking a walk or your anger out on an inanimate object of some kind.
Off to bump the EB vs. BB rankings threads :). Have a good weekend.
You've just hit on a small handful of violations of due process and of the judge putting his hand on the scale of justice. There are so many violations of due process that it's difficult to list. But to me the single most egregious case of the judge weighting the scale of justice is that he did not allow a Federal Election Commission expert to testify that it is NOT a campaign expense to payoff someone in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). A campaign expense is only for something that could be for no other use than a campaign (e.g., polls, campaign staff salaries, TV ads). Campaign expenses even exclude things like a new suit for a debate--sorry, the candidate has to pay for that out-of-pocket. Payoffs for NDAs happen regularly outside of campaigns. Had the jury been made aware that there is no underlying federal election crime that was allegedly being hidden via fraudulent bookkeeping then the jury could not have convicted. The judge denied this testimony and instead gave legally false jury instructions on this point. The entire case is falsely premised.
You've also got the "fact-checkers" working overtime to defend Joe Biden in his role in these politicized prosecutions. They'll claim the White House had nothing to do with these state prosecutions when, in fact, Michael Colangelo, was the Acting Associate Attorney General under Joe Biden and was hired by Alvin Bragg in 2022; 90-days later the NY DA charged Trump with these bogus crimes.
Oh totally, I was just summarizing the points from the legal analyst's article not attempting to hit on all the points. This case won't make it through the NY appeals court (obvious reasons why) but if it got to SCOTUS it wouldn't last 2 seconds. It's almost impressive how nearly every single norm in a court case can be violated and still the trial gets to proceed.
Not from USA so not aware how the legal system works. How likely is this to get thrown out? Presume it needs to go through several courts before it goes to supreme? Could one of them stop it going that far? I assume the supreme court would throw this out or is this way outside the type of cases they look at?
It’s a near certainty that it will eventually get reversed on appeal. The issue is that appeals start at the state level and New York is overwhelmingly stocked with Democrat-appointed judges so I suspect it will take a while to fully adjudicate.
As a former auditor, I decided to read thru the NYC indictment document to see what the actual charges were and try to remove the noise from all the different news outlets out there. Basically the moron used company funds to pay off Stormy and misclassified the transaction. The fact that he got charged for misclassifying $130k for a hundreds of millions of dollars organization is pretty stupid. 130k is so immaterial for a company of this size. The dummy should’ve used his personal funds for it. Way larger scale fraud happens all the time and goes unnoticed… If he wanted to use money to keep someone quiet, is it morally questionable? Sure, maybe, but I don’t really know why this was made into such a big deal. There are def other folks who have committed far worse financial crimes and gotten away w it or w pretty small ramifications.
It's so much more absurd too with additional context. They have 0 evidence that proves intent or outlines a specific instruction from Trump to pay her off, Cohen made the decision on his own to take care of the matter that way and billed after the fact for general legal expenses. He's literally a personal fixer. It's only by his testimony that they even have a possible link to intent to make the payment in the first place. And that's after admitting to personally stealing 10s of 1,000s from Trump across multiple instances of false/improper billing and had it established as a character fact in the record that he would be willing to lie in a circumstance where it would be to his benefit.
inb4 whataboutism
Hilary Clinton's campaign was literally fined for creating the Steel Dossier, which was used as a basis to spend 2 years on baseless reporting, inquiries, and investigation as to whether Trump was somehow being controlled by the Russians. The NYT got a fucking Pulitzer for that shit and the entire thing was kicked off by a establishment Democrat misreporting expenses and using donations to fund the development of fake opposition research to try and defame their opponent during and after an election. $113k fine was the end of it.
Can you copy the article text in? It is paywalled, and it's hard to get a read on this stuff from one sentence excerpts. Most of what you quoted is opinion, not fact.
I mean, just going through this
1. Judge Merchan (and I misnamed him as Engoron on another thread, my bad) gave $15 to the Biden campaign. That is hardly massive partisanship. When his case was reviewed by the Judicial Conduct committee, it noted that there are dozens of judges who violate this law every year, mostly out of a misunderstanding about whether the law relates to all elections or state elections only. Not a great look, I agree... but also hardly an example of someone out to get Mr Trump.
2. Why is this some sort of "gotcha!" moment? Plenty of state and municipal level prosecutors brag about their record of suing political actors, from both sides of the aisle.
3. This is simply the opinion of the author.
4. No other POTUS/candidate has used campaign money to pay off an affair partner to bury a negative story. The fact that Mr Trump has pushed the bounds of ethical conduct for an elected official is why he's being sued in unique ways. Don't want to be sued? Don't commit the crime. Isn't that what conservatives are always saying when liberals talk about leniency in sentencing?
5. This is basically the entire lawsuit. Do you not understand why Mr Trump was charged? It's only in Mr. Bragg's purview in the first place because Mr. Trump falsified those records in order to commit another crime.
6. Some context would be helpful. I can imagine a lot of reasons this might come about; for example, Mr Cohen's testimony is the "smoking gun" and that Mr Trump's long history of trying to intimidate judges, witnesses, and their families might influence his testimony.
7. Again, if you commit a crime no one else has before, then of course it seems "bespoke".
8. Aren't you the guy always complaining about anonymous quotes? This isn't even an indictment, it's purely speculative. Maybe one employee called it a Zombie case one time, and the rest is all the author's biases.
Again, none of this is any kind of evidence that this is anything other than a unique case, and it's only a unique case because Mr Trump is a uniquely unethical former POTUS. In the past, most people who pay hush money to their affair partners either don't get caught, or don't win election and it becomes fairly irrelevant. Mr Trump is an unusual combination of inept and corrupt, and so this came to light.
I mean, a judge gave a $15 donation to the Biden campaign and suddenly he's incapable of doing his job? Mr Trump is also being judged in a much more serious case in Florida by a woman he appointed! I assume you feel that also is not going to be a fair trial, since she's obviously biased in his favor?
That's not entirely true. It was $35 but the amount is irrelevant. He earmarked his donation for "Resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump's Radical Right Wing Legacy." Merchan was sending up a smoke signal to his allies so they knew which camp he was in.
In the United States we prosecute crimes. We don't select a target and investigate that target until we find a crime. Bragg ran on a campaign promising to get Trump. This is an egregious violation of our system of due process.
The only crime in this case was Stormy Daniels trying to extort Donald Trump. Daniels and Cohen colluded together to extort Trump of money. Paying off an affair partner in an NDA isn't a crime and it's not a campaign expense. Judge Merchan, who, as noted above, donated to the a fund for ""Resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump's Radical Right Wing Legacy," would not permit a Clinton-appointed FEC official to testify that this is not a campaign expense and that there is therefore no underlying felony crime that would allow a misdemeanor that had expired under the statutes of limitations to be revived and charged as a felony.
Yes, see above.
Huh? It's a fundament of the US justice system that you are permitted to know the charges against you. This ridiculous case is ripe for an appeal, but this is arguably the best point the defense has. The DA and judge violated both the state and federal constitutions.
Voluptas qui quibusdam et aut qui eos eaque. Id accusamus sint asperiores rem. Nam rerum magnam ipsam nihil et maxime.
Voluptatem voluptatem consectetur ea quidem. Consequatur deserunt suscipit magnam. Corporis nostrum enim magnam commodi molestiae nisi. Et eum et voluptatum veritatis distinctio dolores.
Quaerat modi officiis aut quasi. Omnis quas repudiandae nobis laborum modi enim earum. Eius omnis numquam harum fugiat culpa autem repellendus. Et et assumenda ut adipisci et.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...