AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
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User ID: 2498
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
I believe the law in question is Any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
So to break it down my understanding (which could be wrong, I'm just some bloke on the other side of the world who isn't even a lawyer) of how the technical legal theory of the case works is:
- Trump falsified business records with the intent to defraud the state of New York by preventing them from executing their laws.
- He intended to prevent them from executing their laws by concealing the fact that he had participated in a conspiracy to promote his election to public office by unlawful means.
- The unlawful means in question were Cohen making a payment to Stormy Daniels in order to conceal her story from the public in order to prevent it from damaging Trump's election chances.
- This is unlawful because it's against federal election law to contribute more than a certain amount to a political candidate, and making a transaction on their behalf counts as a contribution.
Or if you're just making the narrow point of asking how the court could know his state of mind, I think the standard rule is that a jury is allowed to infer that a person intended the reasonably foreseeable consequences of their actions.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
I think it is worth noting that both the Democratic President's son and a Democratic Senator are also currently being prosecuted. Many other Democrats have been prosecuted for crimes, often successfully. Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards was prosecuted in a case very similar to the one Trump has just been convicted in. So I don't buy any of this nonsense about how Trump has to get a free pass to make it fair.
Of course, it's entirely reasonable to think these prosecutions do not capture the full spectrum of criminal behaviour within the Democratic party, and I would agree with that proposition. I think it would be wise and just for state level officials or federal officials in a future republican government to aggressively investigate and pursue charges against corrupt Democrats. Politicians should be held to a higher standard rather than a lower one, and vigorous enforcement against them is a good thing. That goes both ways.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
The jury went through voir dire, and Trump's lawyers participated in that process. Potential jurors who would not be impartial were struck. This is standard practice.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
Again, that would have been an interesting argument for Trump to make, but he did not make it. His position was that Cohen was lying by claiming to have been reimbursed.
It's very easy for a jury to conclude that "legal fees" do not encapsulate reimbursement in a case where the defendant is continuing to maintain that they do not.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
You can argue anything. Proving intent beyond a reasonable doubt is however a fairly high bar to clear.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
Bob Menendez clearly hasn't made enough enemies.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
Like, surely there are plenty of hypos here where you would agree. Trump doesn't have his wallet on him, so Cohen buys him lunch, then Trump pays him back later out of his personal funds. Surely, you would agree that this is not a campaign finance charge, yes? What then converts it into a campaign finance charge?
Lunch was not bought for the purpose of influencing the election. Not that there's anything wrong with trying to influence an election, that's what campaigning is. But the campaign finance rules attach.
Suppose Trump/Cohen were at a vendor, planning to complete a sale of a bunch of red TRUMP 2024 yard signs that Trump plans to distribute. Trump's plan is to pay for this from his personal funds, but he forgot his wallet, so Cohen pays for it, and Trump pays him back when they get back to his house.
My reading of the law is it would depend how much the signs cost. A payment made on behalf of a candidate counts as a donation to that candidate, and as far as I can tell this is true regardless of whether the money is paid back later or not. So the question is whether or not the amount comes in below the threshold that Cohen is allowed to donate to Trump for campaign purposes.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
The point is that El Salvador achieved that by not stressing too much about absolutely proving that the people they were locking up were in fact murderous criminals.
I think that's a perfectly fine public policy choice - the old saw about "better to let ten guilty go free than punish one innocent" is a nice line but it's completely reasonable for a country with extreme crime problem to say "actually no, we're not gonna let the ten guilty go free".
But of course if you're happy to be gung-ho about locking up the people who seem bad and not being super-meticulous about making sure they get the absolute duest of process, it does seem hypocritical to complain when that standard gets applied to the con man heading your party.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
I mean, I'm quite confident that Americans are much more criminal than Chinese.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
His lawyer was presented with that hypothetical in oral argument, and responded by reiterating that prosecution would require impeachment and conviction in the Senate first.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
The impression I'm getting is that standard practice in these sorts of cases is to grant bail pending appeal. So it's highly unlikely he goes to jail before the election even if he gets a prison sentence, as the inevitable appeals process will almost certainly not conclude before the election.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
I don't think jokes about the managers appearance on Slack would be kept or maintained for the purpose of evidencing the company's condition or activity.
Having said that, yes, many legal definitions are intentionally very broad.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
As many people have noted, this jury was unusually highly educated, and included two lawyers. I reckon they could understand that sentence fine.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
Okay, so what? The prosecution did not claim it was solely reimbursement.
If I pay you $100 for a stick of chocolate and some cocaine, the fact that it's legal to buy and sell chocolate does not mean that I can't be prosecuted for purchasing the cocaine.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
The practical import of Trump's argument is that as long as Democrats refuse to convict Biden in the Senate, Biden can legally assassinate him.
You could of course argue that Democrats are too noble and high-minded to abuse the system in this way. But that seems like an odd argument to run alongside the claim that they have corrupted and perverted the justice system specifically to target him.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
Trump acted with intent to defraud the state of New York by frustrating its power to faithfully carry out its own law.
You did not mislabel your Venmos (as far as I know) with the intent of preventing the state of New York from executing its law, so you are not guilty of falsification of business records (assuming your Venmos are even business transactions).
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
I certainly wouldn't recommend arguing in court that the contractor built your deck of his own accord and that you didn't ask him to do it.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
The kind-of-arbitrary rule the system has somehow decided on is that you can limit contributions to candidates, but you can't limit people speaking their own mind. So you can donate unlimited money to a PAC but that PAC can't coordinate with the candidate.
So in the hypothetical where Cohen declared himself a PAC he would have violated election finance laws by coordinating his activities with Trump.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
It's kind of wild to be running on a platform of "my opponent can legally assassinate me", but here we are.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
It's certainly possible. I don't think many highly engaged people will change their minds - anyone arguing on the internet about this has already decided what they think. But the people paying basically no attention (a group Trump is doing very well with) could be influenced. I'll be very interested to see what the next batch of polls say.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
It's common everywhere. To quote Sideshow Bob, "Convicted of a crime I didn't even commit! Attempted murder? Now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?"
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
Nope.
An inaccurate business record recorded with innocent intent (eg as a joke or by mistake) is not a crime.
An inaccurate business record recorded with intent to defraud is a misdemeanor.
An inaccurate business record recorded with intent to defraud in the furtherance of another crime is a felony.
You are not a felon because you put a joke on a venmo.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
So the accusation is that bringing this case violated some unwritten norm that was supposedly established in 2012?
Has anyone ever actually been protected by that supposed norm?
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
1yr ago
It would be an interesting defence to say that the reimbursement was in fact legal fees while still being a reimbursement, but that's not the defence Trump chose to raise. He chose to argue that Cohen paid Daniels $130k of his own money with no agreement to be repaid.
I don't think that makes a difference. Otherwise you would have a loophole where a billionaire supporter goes and "loans" his preferred candidate some enormous sum of money on "pay it back when you can (aka never)" terms.
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