2771
submitted 2 years ago by TheDudeV2@lemmy.ca to c/news@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] mkwt@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

the jury convicted on the charges that he falsified business records in order to further campaign fraud.

This is true*. What I was trying to convey was that this statement does not claim that Trump himself perpetrated a campaign finance violation, only that he falsified the business records, etc, etc, so that a campaign violation occurred.

The jury did not have to find that Trump directly participated** in any of the underlying crimes to convict. The conviction is for the false business records. Trump was not on trial for the predicate crimes.

The "strawman" example, as you put it, was too show how absurd it would be to try to claim that Trump himself participated directly in this underlying election crime.

  • The prosecutors presented three underlying predicate crimes: a New York law election crime, Cohen's tax fraud to the IRS, and the Cohen illegal campaign contribution. Under New York law for this business records statue, the jury is not required to say which of the three they believed in. They're not even required to agree amongst themselves. So it's possible that they all went for the tax crime and discounted the campaign crime. We may never find out.

**For instance, if they thought that Trump was helping to cover up one of the underlying crimes, that's enough to convict.

this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
2771 points (99.3% liked)

News

35849 readers
729 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.


Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.


7. No duplicate posts.


If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.


All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS