Below is an expanded version of my column in the New York Post on the start of the Trump trial and much awaited explanation of District Attorney Alvin Bragg on the underlying alleged criminal conduct. The curious aspect of the case is that the prosecutors are stressing that they will prove largely uncontested facts. Indeed, if all of these facts of payments, non-disclosure agreements, and affairs are proven many of us (including liberal legal experts) are doubtful that there is any cognizable crime.
Here is the column:
For many of us in the legal community, the case of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg against former president Donald Trump borders on the legally obscene: an openly political prosecution based on a theory that even some liberal pundits have dismissed. Yet, this week the prosecution seemed like they were actually making a case for obscenity.
No, it was not the gratuitous introduction of an uncharged alleged tryst with a former Playboy bunny or planned details on the relationship with a former porn star. It was the criminal theory itself that seemed crafted around the standard for obscenity famously described by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in the case of Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964): “I shall not today attempt further to define [it] … But I know it when I see it.”
After months of confusion of what crime they were alleging in the indictment, the prosecution offered a new theory that is so ambiguous and undefined that it would have made Justice Stewart blush.
New York prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury that one of the crimes that Trump allegedly committed in listing the payments to Stormy Daniels as a “legal expense” was New York Law 17-152. This law states “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 they are arguing that Trump committed a crime by conspiring to unlawfully promote his own candidacy. He did this by paying to quash a potentially embarrassing story and then reimbursing his lawyer with other legal expenses.
Confused? You are not alone.
It is not a crime to pay money for the nondisclosure of an alleged affair. Moreover, it is also not a federal election offense (which is the other crime alleged by Bragg) to pay such money as a personal or legal expense. It is not treated under federal law as a political contribution to yourself.
Yet, somehow the characterization of this payment as a legal expense is being treated as an illegal conspiracy to promote one’s own candidacy in New York.
The Trump cases have highlighted a couple of New York’s absurdly ambiguous laws. Under another law, New York Attorney General Letitia James secured an almost half of billion dollar judgment against Trump for loans where the alleged victims not only did not lose a dime but were eager for more business from his company. The law does not actually require any loss to a victim to impose a roughly $500 million penalty against a defendant that James pledged to bag in her campaign for office. While the over and under valuing of assets is common in the real estate area, James singled out Trump.
James declined to explain how this law could be used against other businesses since actual losses or injuries are not viewed as necessary. Businesses would just have to trust her and her judgment. In other words, the law could have sweeping applications, but we will know a violation under the civil law when we see it.
As with James, Bragg saw it in Trump. His predecessor did not see it. He declined charging on this basis. Bragg did to. He stopped the investigation. However, after a pressure campaign, Bragg might not be able to see the crime but he certainly saw the political consequences of not charging Trump.
In New York, prosecutors are expected to have extreme legal myopia: they can see no farther than Trump to the exclusion of any implication for the legal system or legal ethics.
Of course, neither he nor his office has never seen this type of criminal case in any other defendant. Ever.
We have never seen a case like this one where a dead misdemeanor from 2016 could be revived as a felony just before any election in 2024.
The misdemeanors in this case, including falsifying these payments, expired with the passage of the statute of limitations. But Bragg (with the help of Matthew Colangelo, a former top official in the Biden Justice Department) zapped it back into life by alleging a federal election crime that the Justice Department itself rejected as a basis for any criminal charge.
So now there is a second crime that is hard for most of us to see, at least outside of New York. Trump is accused of conspiring to promote his own candidacy by mislabeling this payment, even though it was part of a larger legal payment to his former counsel, Michael Cohen.
They do not see a crime in analogous mislabeling of payments by Democratic candidates. Take Hillary Clinton who served as senator from New York and ran for president against Trump. For months before the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign denied that it had funded the infamous Steele dossier behind the debunked Russian collusion claims. That was untrue. When reporters tried to report on the funding story, one journalist said Elias that “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’”
It was later discovered that the funding was hidden as legal expenses by then-Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias. (The FEC later sanctioned the campaign over its hiding of the funding.). Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”
Elias even went with John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, in speaking with congressional investigators and Podesta denied categorically any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS.
While the funds were part of the campaign budget, they were listed as legal expenses and the Clinton people continued to insist that such payments to a former intelligence figure to put together the dossier was a legal expenditure.
It is not clear if Trump even knew how this money was characterized on ledgers or records. He paid the money to his lawyer, who had put together this settlement over the nondisclosure agreement. Cohen will soon go on the stand and tell the jury that they should send his former client to jail for following his legal advice.
In addition to running for president, Trump was a married host of a hit television show. There were ample reasons to secure a NDA to bury the story. Even if money was paid to bury these stories with the election in mind, it is not unusual or illegal. There was generally no need to list such payments as a campaign contribution because they were not a campaign contribution in the view of the federal government.
It is not even clear how this matter was supposed to be noted in records. What if the Trump employee put “legal settlement in personal matter” or “nuisance payment”? Would those words be the difference
Again, it is not clear. But that does not appear to matter in New York. The crime may not be clear or even comprehensible. However, the identity of the defendant could not be more clear and the prosecutors are hoping that the jury, like themselves, will look no further.
I wonder what the rest of the country thinks of this case. New York and DC seem to be the worst perpetrators of this Lawfare. Atlanta and Fulton County is more of an aberration since it still is a red – purple state and the DA there is almost incompetent and much of the state power structure is republican. I see this going on and wonder would I ever return to New York and I would have to say no as it now stands.
For the last 20 years before I retired as a physician, I yearly took a trek to Boston to Harvard’s continuing medical education, which I thought was the best I had ever attended and it was magnificent. I read the list of attendees and there were people there from all over the world but from the United States they were almost exclusively from the Northeast. I was often the only attendee from west of Pennsylvania and essentially none from the south and far west. I wonder, with what we see in New York, if the students from outside the northeast will cease to come. It may be many New York families and their children may choose to go south and west. What will that mean to New York and the northeast when the best no longer come there for an education and locals leave the area.
It was a point of pride, when I was in high school, that in back to back years a student from my school in SW Atlanta received full ride scholarships to MIT. Why go to MIT now when Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina and others have engineering schools as good as MIT. And in smaller towns and safer.
GEB,
Your comment is timely to this article from The Free Press, Kids Are Giving Up on Elite Colleges—and Heading South
https://www.thefp.com/p/kids-skip-ivy-league-for-southern-schools
None of those skools are any good. They are all DEI garbage mills, generally mentally deficient Leftists who know nothing, can accomplish nothing, and are nothing. But they will have a worthless piece of paper saying they graduated from Harvard’s Leftist Indoctrination Entity, or some other LIE. America is well on its way to becoming a Commie HellHole lead by the lawless anti-America Democrats.
That picture of Hillary Clinton: priceless. So is this new
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enemiessnowman.Thermonator is the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog. This quadruped is coupled with the ARC Flamethrower to deliver on-demand fire anywhere! Free US shipping!
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Gentlemen & Boys: Let all of Trump’s Trials & Tribulations be a lesson to You
Having Sex with a Woman is not a Reward, it is a Submission.
Once under Contract (post-coitus) She will have Her way with You; your Wallet, your Status, your Life. That is the state of play today. If your Rich or Famous it just makes it worse.
Check your Relationship Agreement to avoid Entrapment – Think! before you Pork.
You’ve been Warned
The same goes for you Ladies
“. . . gratuitous introduction of an uncharged alleged tryst . . .”
Per the Left’s usual smear tactics, here is its trial strategy:
Portray Trump as slimy. Hope that the jury “deliberates” via its feelings and concludes: He’s so slimy, he must be guilty of something.
“She’s a witch.” “He’s slimy.” The Salem prosecutors might have had an excuse. The modern Left has none.
I voted for Pierre Delecto before he was Pierre Delecto. In hindsight, I’m relieved he lost—the only good thing Barack Obama ever did was beating him
Pierre is a much stranger person than I imagined 12 years ago. Had he won, he would have gone full RINO. He has an ego and a vindictive streak that seem wildly out of keeping with the Mormon faith. I’m glad I don’t have to figure him out.
So many problems with your read on this case, Jon. Essentially I boil down your sentiment to you just not liking the laws trump is being prosecuted for breaking…
And I consider you to be the ‘lawyer for plausible deniability’ really struggling to create that plausible deniability but just not having much to work with here. Let’s agree to meet for the sure to fail appeal later on, okay?
Well, Anon, you are predictable, if nothing else. Since you can’t make an argument to counter the logic of the Professor, or support prosecution of anyone, much less Trump, under this incomprehensible statute, you just conclude that the prosecution will win and the appeal will fail.
You may be right because we all know the political environment, but the law is supposed to be reasonably clear and make sense, especially the criminal law. It used to be that the courts were highly reluctant, indeed resistant, to declare a statute (whether state or federal) unconstitutional for vagueness or a violation of common sense. Legislatures have passed many such laws, often in the dead of night with no debate, but because they are so flawed they are seldom, if ever, enforced for that very reason. Political vendettas can, as in this case, raise those statutes from the dead. Decades ago I argued for the unconstitutionality of an almost-never-before-used century-old federal statute on those grounds and lost in both the trial and appellate courts. The Supremes declined cert. Not too many years later Congress repealed that same statute on the grounds that it was unconstitutionally vague and impossible to enforce fairly and objectively. Lately, a few courts are showing some spine and doing the same. The times they are a-changing and in some ways for the better. You “get-Trump-by-any-means-available” guys could probably win this vindictive battle, especially since the appellate process will not be concluded before the election, but as long as there are folks in power with a modicum of character you will not win the war.
Professor Turley’s analysis is spot on.
What makes it so hard for you to realize the crime here is cooking the books to skirt around election finance laws??? That takes it into felony territory.
Speaking of avoiding the issue…, how is doing the above anywhere near just being regular old ‘legal expenses’? Better yet, who on trump’s side can testify to it in the face of the witnesses testifying against trump?
Clearly you don’t like the fact it’s such a solid case ( and neither does Turley). But that by itself won’t wish it away.
When I comment for brevity on this blog it’s basically because the place is heavily populated with idiots jamming their hands over their ears because they can’t deal with factual reality. That’s a feature, not a bug, within trumpism.
Ad Hominem attack
Ignores the subject of the post.
We now know that New York is a lawless wasteland. Hamas supporters run amuck. Violent criminals are released, good samaritans are jailed. The attorney General and a local prosecutor sees Trump’s wake and assume that there will be dead bodies or criminal acts come floating to the surface. The only problem is that all those crimes and bodies are the result of the fetid state of New York law and police inaction, and those citizens and business’s that can, flee the state. One must wonder why anyone would stay there. Surely not for the weather. I begin to think that those that are left in that city are too poor to leave or they enjoy living in the trash and echos of a once great city. Possibly the cannibals that Joe Biden see’s are living there now after having eaten there way north from the border.
The one glimmer of hope I have seen is that AG James’s attempt to overthrow the reduction of Trumps bond reduction in the previous show trial was almost summarily dismissed. It seemed the judge there did not want his hands soiled with the excrement of the case.
A glimmer of light on the horizon-Argentina declared a government surplus for the 1st time in 16 yrs. And despite all the hope for a collapse the state there is still standing. And they have applied for membership in NATO, even though they are technically not in the North Atlantic. But then neither is Turkey, or Italy, or Greece or Poland etc.
Hopefully some people can take note of what is possible.
Look people. This iteration of Anonymous the Stupid, aka Bug, is intentionally lying to elicit a response. Let him starve please
Bragg retained Colangelo from the Biden administration to present his case I’m surprised Adam Schiff isn’t handling evidence?
Margo, Colangelo came and volunteered, or likely recruited by Obama to lead this. There is back door payments to him. Colangelo’s position as number 3 at Main Justice, would have landed him a $ million a year draw at a dozen different firms. He is being compensated for leading this case. Most likely a huge signing bonus after wrapping up this carnival ride.
We all have to understand, none of these legal cases are structured to with stand appeal. ALL of them are going to get overturned.
I finally figured out why the Democrats dumped Andrew Cuomo. New York just couldn’t get this kind of government with a white male in charge.
It’s obvious that New York needs more XX chromosome people and intelligent black people in charge.
“Holy Lavrentiy Beria, Batman!!”
We will see. It is in the courts now. If the case really is that weak then it will be dismissed. I have strong doubts that the prosecutor would bring weak charges in such a high profile case. If I am wrong, then I will be the first to call the prosecutor the biggest idiot in the US.
You just heard a detailed description of whats going on.
Merchan is a hack, so the outcome of this is not determinative until after appeal.
If the whole purpose is to influence the 2024 election by keeping Trump off the campaign trail as well as to put a gag order on him from discussing the case then Bragg, the Judge are all acting as agents for the Democratic party.
To take your position of endure 8 weeks of a trial and then have to wait months to appeal is ridiculous. Even the DA cannot truly explain what the crime is. If it were just misdemeanors then they are beyond the statute of limitations and the typical penalty is a few thousand dollar fine. There is no felony here. The whole concept of a campaign violation hasn’t been explained by the DA but there is no crime.
Sammy, you dont find them converting a misdemeanor into a felony weak? Removing the SOL just to “GETTUMP” as weak? How about the absurd idea that Trump violated a NY state law by, “that Trump committed a crime by conspiring to unlawfully promote his own candidacy.” Wouldnt that be an indication of a weak case?
But when Clinton did the same thing, even got fined for it, that was okay? Just ignore it? Just pretend it did not happen?
Sammy: You express the unbridled optimism that many of us share in believing our elected officials are ethical, honest, and dedicated to the public good. This is so in many cases but if you’ve been following this case and some of the others against Trump, you will note that the prosecutors are all flawed people whose political ambitions have replaced whatever public service ambitions they might ever have had. In the end, this should balance itself out as some of the Trump cases receive judicial review at the appellate level. In the meantime, we and he must endure the cost and waste of time that these rogue prosecutors have used their power to impose improperly. Yesterday, the Biden WH was exposed for having engineered the Archives case against Trump now in preparation before Judge Cannon in Florida. Previously redacted “classified” materials have been released showing not only no reason to classify them but also that the WH Counsel was directly involved with the National Archives and the Justice Department to criminalize a matter that was being properly and customarily handled to collect presidential materials. The people are not stupid and they see and understand this, even though the liberal media attempts to cover it up or mischaracterize it. Don’t lose faith in the system. It is designed to correct itself but this sometimes takes a little time.
JJC,
Well said.
The fact Bragg ran on “GETTRUMP” seems to be lost on a number of people, and they believe blindly this is not political.
Amazing.
Just in case people have not heard about the Biden WH collusion, as we all know, MSM will not touch it, Unsealed docs expose early collaboration between Archives, Biden White House in Trump prosecution
“The newly unsealed documents provide the latest evidence indicating disparate by government’s treatment in Trump and Biden’s respective classified documents cases.”
https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/new-court-docs-show-archives-biden-wh-coordinated-trump-probe
I have strong doubts that the prosecutor would bring weak charges in such a high profile case.???? The either a) you read at a pre-school level, and/or b) you’re an idiot.
@Sammy
So, you base your belief that the case is not weak on “strong doubts that the prosecutor would bring weak charges in such a high profile case”? Did you actually read the article? Are you aware that the prior DA and the Feds apparently refused to ‘bring these weak charges’?
Does your type of thinking work both ways as in a prosecutor would not bring strong charges in a high profile case? As in Hillary with her email destruction of government documents? As in Biden stealing government documents BEFORE he was POTUS, storing them insecurely and selling that info for profit via a book publication?
Some would say that your faith in prosecutors not being political is nothing short of astounding. Others would say it is just naive.
BTW Sammy, did you get a chance to read the text of the Espionage Act?
Simply a Corrupt Kangroo Court you find in Banana Republics where the Elite try to get rid of their opposition
MOST EXPENSIVE ONE-NIGHT STAND EVER!
-And there you have it. That’s all to see Folks-
I think this is more about Hillary Clinton getting vicarious-revenge for Bill Clinton’s numerous infidelities.
(Trump’s Orange Jumpsuit) Orange is the new Red, White, and Blue 🇺🇸 – Why?
Because the way the Shadow State has treated Us over the Years, is the way Trump is/has being treated.
It’s not like: It’s about time to see a White upper-class Man treated like we have been,
it’s about; Ways, Means, and Methods of the Shadow State, that divest your life and strip you of anything of value. Your integrity, your innocence, your viability, your Life basically, and They don’t Stop – They don’t know how (to stop).
They’re showing Themselves when they do the things They do to Trump (and US).
So there you have it. Trump will Win the 2024 Election, but the Shadow State will Steal-Away the Victory.
Like a Terminator – They (HRC) will keep coming – They (HRC) will never quit – They (HRC) don’t know how. HRC = 💀
HRC Made Some Rather Unhinged Claims About What Trump Wants to Do to His Political Opponents
By: Leah Barkoukis ~ April 22, 2024
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2024/04/22/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-comments-n2638096
Video: youtube.com/watch?v=9UpNrRNL8Gw
Bill Barr’s 2024 Decision Might Irritate Some, But It Shows He Knows Who the Real Enemy Is
By: Matt Vespa ~ April 22, 2024
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2024/04/22/bill-barrs-2024-decision-might-irritate-some-but-it-shows-he-knows-who-the-real-enemy-is-n2638085
Amazing the lengths Democrats will go to twist and corrupt the law all to “GETTRUMP!”
The double standards are unreal.
It appears the New York legal system is on trail. There is hope the people of NY, the jury, will send a strong message to the DA.
I have a comment on the technical aspects of this case in the comment section of the preceding article.
Daniel,
The upside to this trial, and all the others are they put on display the absurd lengths Democrats are willing to go to to “GETTRUMP!”
If anything they are helping Trump. As the good professor points out, they use absurd means to twist a misdemeanor into a felony, they change the law to get around the SOL, they charge Trump for the exact same thing Hillary Clinton did.
They just expect the American public to ignore these facts, ignore Bragg is looking for a crime, and the crime he is really trying to convict Trump on is character. If we were to apply the same standard to Hillary Clinton, she would be wearing orange.
Absurd!
I think this will help Trump if there is an acquittal or hung jury. If he is convicted, some swing voters who would otherwise vote for him might not. In that circumstance I don’t think many swing voters would vote for him because they perceive he is being persecuted.
Daniel
Can the New York State election law be cited? I have seen opinions that the state law covers only state and local office elections only.
I think you may be right about that.
The question is, will Merchen allow the use of the State law anyway, just to get the conviction? No one doubts a conviction will be overturned. So the Judge ignoring the law seems in character.
Hard to know how these highly technical issues will get resolved. But I agree that if there is any uncertainty this judge will resolve it against Trump.
List of Jewish Nobel Laureates
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates
Hatred of the innocent is the fruit of the Jews. Christ, the Palestinians, the unborn, and Trump BAHA. And the schmuck Trump wants more money to go to Israel to kill innocent kids, what a fzxcking idiot. Hang yourself Trump.
Your comments prove the old adage, ‘ignorance is bliss, and I’m a happy person’. You must be the happiest person on the planet.
What are you selling retard?
Definitely not what you are selling.
You are going to love your Moshiach, he has got the girth you need require and must have to make you the most flamboyant fancyassed Jew ever.
You are a fool. You prove it every day with your nonsense posts. Why they don’t get rid of you is beyond me, but they probably let you stay so we can see what stupid looks like.
You are already the most flamboyant fancyassed Jew ever, you don’t need the Moshiach to make you more of what you already are.
Dont feed this meaningless troll
The Moshiach is pure love the purest of pure love. And there is nothing the Moshisch loves more than bullfzxcking little kyke scum suckers such as yourself over and over without end until the cows come home. You are going to love your Big Mo. And you are going to be dancing and gay parading all over the place when he gets here. BAHA The Moshiach is not straight. The Moshiach is into the lifestyle. And he has needs, sick twisted Jew only type needs.
They are not innocent.
Their parents perverted them with hate at a young age. They have hate in their hearts as instructed by their parents. They are taught to hate. And they do hate. They are not innocent.
Hatred of those who persecute and torment the weak and the innocent is a service to God. You deserve to be hatred you fzxcking jew retard. You hate the innocent. And don’t tell me those 15,000 dead kids are not innocent, okay schmuck?
There is none innocent. No, not one.
——-isaiah
They are not innocent.
Their parents teach them to hate.
They have hate in their hearts.
It is sad and unfortunate.
I blame their parents.
The 15,000 dead kids, are not innocent say it Christ killer. No they, don’t say they.
Yes.
You said it.
“The 15,000 dead kids, are not innocent . . .”
Their parents perverted and corrupted them. Their parents taught them to hate. In order to stop the cycle of violence, the hate must be ended for there to be peace.
The infants and new borns too, say it kyke, say it….
Infants and new borns, too, Christ killer?
At some point the injustice towards Trump will end. We will not be taken by surprise to see how it ends.
It will end when he stops committing crimes, or is in prison, or joins the devil for eternal golf games.
Waiting for the first crime Sammy. But you just Demonstrated how corrupt the judge is. He told the jury Trump is in trial for the crime of election interference. . . . Despite that crime has never been charged and is not charged in the trial he is seeing over.
Where is the crime he committed of election interference?
If anyone is committing election interference it is the NY prosecution, the judge, and the DNC.
But you are okay with that, right?
Sammy, the Hillary Clinton campaign paid for the Steel dossier, claimed it was legal fees, got caught and had to pay a fine, but you are not jumping up and down about Clinton going to jail. Why is that?