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Notes -
Yes, of course it involves paperwork. My objection was framing it as "paperwrok errors." The allegation is of intentional false statements. Again, whether he is actually guilty of that, or whether if so it is a felony or a misdemeanor, or any of the other questions raised by the prosecution are separate issues. But if we are going to have an objective discussion of the prosecution, it seems to me that we need to be clear on what that allegations actually are.
To be precise, the crime is intentionally falsely recording a personal expense (paying off Stormy Daniels) as a corporate expense (the Trump Organization paying a bill for legal services provided by Michael Cohen). Absent any other wrongdoing, this would be misdemeanor false accounting. Under NY State law, it gets upgraded to a felony because of the intent to conceal the campaign finance violations.
It would normally turn into felony tax evasion if the Trump Organization filed a corporate tax return based on the falsified accounts, but the indictment implies that the payments were 1040ed with the expectation that Cohen would pay personal income tax on them. This means that there was no revenue loss, so probably no tax evasion charges on the Trump Organization. (Cohen did not, in fact, pay the tax, and was jailed for personal tax evasion in 2018).
Apart from the tax angle, this would never normally be prosecuted unless an actual human being lost money as a result. But it is a real crime, not "three felonies a day" bullshit. Law-abiding businesses do not intentionally falsify their books and records. It certainly looks like the prosecutor has evidence of falsification and evidence of intent.
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