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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   37952 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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Trump Indicted: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/30/donald-trump-indicted-in-hush-money-payment-case.html

This is a major enough story that I think it goes beyond needing more than just a link.

A New York grand jury indicted Donald Trump in connection with a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels made by his former lawyer Michael Cohen.

Is that what this is about? I thought they at least had tax fraud receipts. What the fuck?

A New York grand jury indicted Donald Trump in connection with a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels made by his former lawyer Michael Cohen.

It's a campaign finance violation. The suggestion is that Trump used campaign funds to pay the hush money. AFAIK, this is a civil thing, it happens not-infrequently in small local elections, and the punishment is usually that you pay some multiple of the amount of the violation.

So like, if it's a 5x multiple, Trump will owe $500k or so.

The suggestion is that Trump used campaign funds to pay the hush money.

I don't believe that has ever been the suggestion. In fact, I think it's the opposite. He used private funds hushing up Stormy Daniels, "in service of the campaign", without properly disclosing it as campaign spending. Through some arcane and novel interpretation, this has been goosed up to a felony.

It's not wholly novel, Jon Edwards was charged with a felony for the same thing and was acquitted.

The novelty is that a state is using an alleged (but never tried) violation of federal campaign finance law to create a state felony unrelated directly to campaign finance reform. So notwithstanding that those actually tasked with upholding campaign finance laws passed on this case, a state DA decided to effectively bring the case.

In short, it is a hard area to win, the facts are far from clear, and the DA is using a novel application of the law. Against a former president. Beyond idiotic.

John Edwards was accused of using campaign contributions as hush money, which is not the same thing.

The money never came from an Edwards campaign fund, a major donor sent the money to a friend who sent it to Edwards assistant's wife and they paid off his mistress. Edwards says this a personal expense paid for with a personal gift. SC's Republican prosecutor said this was in service to the campaign and so an unreported campaign donations, just like what NY prosecutor says about Trump.

This is not correct for several reasons. Edwards was tried in a federal court in North Carolina, not a state court, or in South Carolina. Trump has not been charged with any federal crimes, and in fact the DOJ and FEC conducted their own inquiries into the same alleged offense and decided against charging him with anything. It also makes a significant difference as to whether the money comes from a donor - which places it in the realm of campaign contributions - or from the candidate's own pocket or business organization. The Edwards prosecution also cited fake invoices for nonexistent purchases that the donor listed as the reason they were giving money to Edwards, so that the money wouldn't have to be listed in FEC reports.

As far as I can tell, under Bragg's theory, if you pay hush money it is a legitimate campaign expense.

Bragg's theory

What's that? Isn't that about x-ray diffraction?

Reading the article would have revealed that the prosecutor in this case is named Alvin Bragg.

More comments

I believe Jon Edwards was charged with the opposite problem. He did in fact use campaign contributions to pay off a mistress, not his own personal money.

Which I've heard pointed out as a catch-22. If you are running for office and wish to make a private NDA with someone to not blab to the media about your embarrassing private matters, how legally can you do this?

Use your campaign funds and you are misusing them.

Use your private funds and you are sneakily concealing expenditures that benefit your campaign. That should be campaign funding since it benefits the campaign.

If you are running for office and wish to make a private NDA with someone to not blab to the media about your embarrassing private matters, how legally can you do this?

As a counter to this: making private NDAs with people to avoid scandal is something that happens regularly with all sorts of public figures, not just political candidates -- see SpaceX paying off a flight attendant. It seems plausible to argue that personal reputation (especially for a businessman with a penchant for oversized gold lettering of his name on buildings) is not merely a campaign item.

I heard on a radio show that private NDAs are common among celebrities. Hollywood types, etc. It is not very romantic to ask your new girl to sign an agreement to keep relationship details secret, but supposedly some major media figure do just that.

So yeah, people with no political ambition at all have these agreements. They are merely managing their brand. So please sign this agreement to not disclose personal information.

I suppose the solution is merely to not be scandalous--but this would be quite a high bar for many politicians to clear.

That assumes that all people claiming XYZ are true. Maybe you are innocent but paying someone 10K is worth it.

My understanding is that a major Edwards donor (Rachel Mellon) wrote personal checks to Edwards which he used to pay off his mistress. The prosecution said that since paying off his mistress was in the interest of the campaign these were illegal campaign donations not personal gifts.

My understanding is that a major Edwards donor (Rachel Mellon) wrote personal checks to Edwards which he used to pay off his mistress. The prosecution said that since paying off his mistress was in the interest of the campaign these were illegal campaign donations not personal gifts.

I'm trying to untangle the specifics. It's plausible, but every source I've found over 6 articles or so just says they were campaign contributions. Illegal campaign contributions even, because they were in excess of the allowed amount. But they were also from, were they his campaign chair and campaign chair's wife?

I suppose in a sense it could be similar to Trump's problem, if the federal government came in after the fact and said "Wait wait wait, those checks with your name on them were actually campaign contributions! And big illegal ones at that!" Except in Trump's case it was just his own damned money.

The feds also totally FUBARed that prosecution from what I read. But who knows, maybe they'll coast in NYC on "Orange Man Bad" alone.

I scanned the indictment and they say there was a complex scheme where the major donor wrote checks to a friend who gave the money to the wife of Edwards assistant, and then she used it to pay the living expenses of Edward's mistress.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/legacy/2011/06/03/edwards-indictment.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjkybKe9IT-AhUSm2oFHVLIC5AQFnoECCAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1EMw9kIVnbJaWJLkYhos4K

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