To be clear, it is not a hush money trial. It is an election interference trial. Hush money is not actually criminal in and if itself, the fact that it was used in relation to influencing an election is what makes it a crime. It is election interference.
No, you still have it wrong. It’s the fact that it was business fraud and ultimately came from campaign dollars.
Trump could have avoided literally alll of this simply by paying cash out of pocket.
The payment of hush money would have counted as a campaign contribution regardless of the source. If he paid it personally it would have been reportable. If Cohen paid it it would have been reportable. If a third party paid it it would have been reportable.
The reason it would have been reportable is because it provided benefit to the campaign. Covering up negative news is a benefit to the campaign, so if he paid it himself it would still have been a campaign contribution he would have to report.
By covering up the payment he is taking or making a campaign contribution in violation of FEC rules. By suppressing the story of his affair with Stormy Daniels he is contributing to his campaign and failure to disclose makes this a crime.
The fact that he committed a crime by failing to report a campaign contribution is what makes the payment itself part of a felony rather than a misdemeanor. In New York law they do not have to prove the specific electoral crime itself for this set of falsifications of business records to be related to a felony level crime and therefore felonious. The jury instructions approved by the judge specifically say that the jurors can find that he violated one of several options of law for raising this to a felony.
The problem is people on juries can (try) to disregard instructions. I served on one and was NOT the foreperson and yet was the only one to speak up when some insisted on raising hypothetical motives when the judge had specifically instructed us only to consider presented evidence.
“No, you cannot guess as to what occurred” I had to repeatedly say.
I worry that one or more jurors will rationalize instead of fulfill their sworn duty. I hope not but….
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah I am confused by the amount of likes but iirc there's three significant cases:
Wasn't there a 4th case, something about New York?
You are thinking about the real estate fraud. He over valued properties for loans and under valued them for insurance purposes
Yes there was another suit against the trump org in NY for fraud, but it's basically over, a judgement has been entered and last thing I've heard is that he was trying to secure a bond and the latest bond company got rejected by the court because something something not offering collateral.
I have no clue what the current status of this case is.
It's been so long, it's like taking off a pair of shoes that are too tight...
As with the other 45,762 rulings against Trump:
...blah, blah, blah, blah....smells ike a rose, increase in polls....
I don't understand the logic of why corruption makes someone their more ideal candidate. Is America just full of idiots? Whats the psychology behind that
I have a data point from two of my relatives who both agree they want to see the ship go down. At least one votes in bad faith for whomever they think will cause more harm to the country they feel did not hold up its part of the social contract. Toddlers lashing out much like the orange one.
You stupid fucking monkey brain, you are on that ship! Your overweight, diabetic ass will not be surviving the looter wars.
Cults. Look at any cult. The police, military, religions, patriotism, Branch Davidion, etc. All cults, all full of people who shouldn't be part of it because it's against their best interests.
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.