Yesterday, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) had a much covered interaction with CNN’s Manu Raju who asked him about Trump’s criminal trial and whether he was guilty of the underlying criminal conduct. Romney responded “I think everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump’s character, and so far as I know you don’t pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you.” I have previously defended Romney in his votes on impeachment despite our disagreement on the constitutional standard. I also understand that he was making a more general comment on character. However, his response is precisely what Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is seeking from the jury: a verdict on Trump as a person rather than the underlying criminal allegations.
Trump is currently facing 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree regarding payments made to Daniels during the 2016 presidential election. As I discuss today in the New York Post, many of us (including liberal legal experts) still question whether there is any crime alleged by Bragg. Raju reasonably asked Romney for his own view.
Romney is an interesting person to ask. He is not only a critic of the President from within his own party but he is a former businessman who has had to deal with complex reporting and business obligations.
Romney’s response must be encouraging for Bragg. Rather than address the ambiguous criminal allegation, Romney suggested that Trump was guilty as charged in having a tryst with a former porn star.
The defense is not contesting the payment and the fact of the affair is not central to the allegations. The question is whether the payments were unlawfully denoted as legal expenses with the intent to somehow steal the 2016 election.
It is not a crime to use a NDA or other means to quash an embarrassing story. Bill Clinton had a host of lawyers quashing allegations of affairs and sexual assaults throughout his presidency. He ran into trouble when he committed perjury in the effort to hide what Hillary Clinton called one of his “bimbo eruptions.”
Moreover, denoting this as a legal expense, on the advice of counsel, is not necessarily wrong. It is not clear how it should have been to be denoted. A “nuisance payment”? The campaign of Hillary Clinton and its general counsel Marc Elias hid the funding of the Steele dossier as a legal expense and was fined by the government for doing so. They litigated the question and insisted that that is precisely what it was.
Romney is precisely what Bragg is looking for in these jurors. Smart and savvy, he still viewed the question of the trial as whether Trump had an affair with Stormy Daniels. If so, it was not a legal expense. Yet, quashing the story and avoiding any litigation was a legal matter with the eventual crafting of the NDA.
There are a lot of motivations for NDAs of this kind. Trump was married. He was the host of a hit television show (with a clause on termination for scandalous conduct). And, yes, he was also seeking to be president. He wanted these stories killed and friends like David Pecker were helping in that effort. What those facts say about the former president’s “character” will remain a matter of public debate and, as Romney said, most long ago reached their own conclusions. Yet, it is the crime not the character of Trump that is at issue in Manhattan.
Alvin Bragg would like the trial to remain a verdict on character, which is why he started the trial discussing not the Daniels matter but an uncharged affair and settlement with a former Playboy bunny. It is why he fought hard (and succeeded) in being able to question Trump about past cases involving an alleged assault and fraudulent conduct. As legal experts continue this week to debate if there is even a crime alleged in the indictment, Bragg is making a case that Trump’s lack of character is beyond a reasonable doubt.
To be fair, Romney was not giving a full interview on the case in his statement to CNN and may well have some reservations about the Bragg indictment. However, Bragg is likely hoping that “everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump,” including twelve jurors currently sitting in the Manhattan courtroom.
Jonathan: DJT claims the Manhattan criminal trial is interfering with his campaigning. So what did he do on his day off from trial on Wednesday? Did he campaign? Nope. He played golf at his Bedminster Golf Club! But DJT did take time at 2am on Wednesday to post this:
“This New York Cabal, run by Crooked Joe Biden White House, is a hit job on a Political Opponent the likes of which the USA has never seen before. For the Good of our Country it must be stopped. The Crooked Joe Biden Witch Hunts have to end. REPUBLICANS IN WASHINGTON MUST TAKE ACTION!”.
Sorry, Donald, but the MAGA Republicans in the House can’t help you. Mike Johnson is preoccupied with his own problems–like holding on to his job! And Joe Biden is not responsible for your legal predicament in Manhattan. That’s a STATE prosecution over which Biden has no control. You ought to be really pleading with jury. They are the ones who will decide your fate!
Why is Turley so steeped in confirmational bias?
Jonathan: And yet there is another important case you have deliberately avoided discussing. Arizona’s AG has just indicted 7 of those at the core of DJT’s scheme to overturn the 2020 election in Arizona. This includes Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Jena Ellis, John Eastman, Cristina Bobb, Boris Epshteyn and Mike Roman. The usual suspects. DJT is an unindicted do-conspirator in this case. In addition, a number of the GOP fake electors in Arizona have also been indicted. Arizona now joins Georgia, Michigan and Nevada in bringing indictments for those involved in the criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 election. Wisconsin is continuing its investigation.
What’s interesting is this is the first time Epshteyn has been a named defendant in any case involving the scheme to overturn the 2020 election. Although as DJT’s “Rasputin” lawyer he was a key organizer of the fake elector scheme and an unnamed co-conspirator in Jack Smith’s criminal case in DC. Seems more proof that MAGA stands for “Making Attorneys Get Attorneys”!
There’s no such thing as a fake elector.
Brazen corruption and election interference.
Arizona AG: “Here’s the plan: More Communist show trials!”
It’s all just a coincidence that President Trump now on trial in 5 different jurisdictions in the middle of an election year.
Jonathan: There was an important case before SCOTUS on Tuesday you missed. The Court refused to take up a case out of Texas involving voting rights. TX passed a law that limits mail-in voting to those over 65 years of age without a excuse. All voters under 65 must vote in person unless they can provide a “legitimate excuse” to get a mail-in ballot. Three Democratic voters under 65 challenged the TX law arguing it would have an adverse effect on younger voters. They would face substantive barriers to voting in person– including school schedules, lack of transportation and limited time off from work.
The extreme right-wing of SCOTUS has never found a voter suppression law it will not endorse. But mail-in voting has been around for years. It was particularly important in the 2020 election during the Covid pandemic. In my state where I vote I have been voting by mail for years–without having to provide an excuse. It’s a safe and secure method of voting. DJT challenged mail-in votes in 2020 but there was no evidence of voter fraud connected with mail-in votes.
So the latest endorsement of the Texas voter suppression law by SCOTUS will encourage other GOP states to pass similar voter suppression laws. That’s not good for Democracy. Voting is probably the most important Democratic right. All other rights flow from voting. But now in TX if you are under 65 you will have to provide a “legitimate excuse” before you can vote by mail. It’s another barrier–it’s voter suppression in spades!
Dennis: thank you. How ironic that Republicans oppose mail voting when both Trump and Pence availed themselves of voting by mail. All of this is, of course, calculated to try to lend credence to Trump’s lies about voter fraud perpetrated via mail ballots and also to make it more difficult for probable Democrat voters to vote because some lack transportation, can’t get time off from work and can’t get to the polls. Some pundit pointed out that all of the current disrespect for and fear of what SCOTUS will do next are traceable to Republicans–if the Florida recount had been permitted to go forward and Al Gore had been declared the winner (which he was), Bush wouldn’t have been in a position to nominate Alito. We all know how Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch got onto the SCOTUS–via another invalid POTUS who cheated his way into power. So, not only has SCOIUS reversed a 50-year consitutional right to abortion, but they may be poised to let Trump get away with committing crimes, and to take away other rights found to be protected by Constitutional provisions on privacy and liberty might be on the chopping block, like contraception and same-sex marriage.
I am finding many faults these days with Donald Trump first and foremost his slavish adherence to the Ukraine proxy plans his predecessors established. Now that Ukraine is losing and will lose in spite of the extra money being thrown at it, he should be condemned for this.
He should also be criticized over the inferior vaccine and the compulsions surrounding it, of which he remains proud. Pride in error is a fault. RFK Jr is to be applauded for his wisdom where the vaxes and Coof is concerned
But this case against Trump is bogus. It is the proverbial indicted ham sandwich
Saloth Sar
Romney is uniparty scum, He is a plutocrat. He is the kept man of the military industrial complex and the bottom beech of the stable of horses that Wall street keeps. Did I mention he is scum?
Saloth Sar
Saloth Sar said: “Romney is uniparty scum, He is a plutocrat. He is the kept man of the military industrial complex and the bottom beech of the stable of horses that Wall street keeps. Did I mention he is scum?”
Mike Johnson has a ridiculously over-groomed appearance, a totally bland, dopey demeanor, and pulls pathetic political pranks that have no common denominator beyond shallow self-idolatry. I’ve known for weeks that he reminded me very much of another politician, but I had been struggling to come up with the identity. Then I read Turley’s column on Romney and the mystery was immediately solved. Could Mike Johnson be Mitt Romney’s illegitimate son?
Professor Turley Writes:
Romney suggested that Trump was guilty as charged in having a tryst with a former porn star.
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Already the prosecution has laid out a case where Trump, Cohen and Pecker colluded to use the National Enquirer to essentially launch Trump’s campaign.
Trump, a president who attacked mainstream media on a daily basis, used a supermarket tabloid to get his initial campaign off the ground. But we’re supposed to hate the New York Times!
And Trump used checkbook journalism to mop up stories about his sordid affairs. All those good, ‘Christian’ voters had no idea their candidate dallied with a porn star and Playboy model.
Yet Trump has gleefully taken credit for the Dobbs decision which has become the Dredd Scott of our time. Women with pregnancy complications now find themselves in medical and legal nightmares.
To think that a philandering husband, who paid hush money to a porn star and Playboy model, was responsible for taking away a constitutional right women had for half a century!
Ignoring the spin and your attacks on Trump’s character – which you and any other voter are free to weigh however you wish.
Nothing you mentioned is a crime – or even close to a crime.
Most everything you mentioned has been done by pretty much every politician, businessmen and even many ordinary people.
I did not vote for Trump in 2016 or in 2020 – exactly the questions about his Character drove those choices.
I did not vote for George Bush in 1992 – because he lied to the UN about the Vincense position in the shooting down of the Irainian airliner.
I could not possibly vote for Bill Clinton for the same reasons Ross Perot stated – if your wife canj not trust you – why should the people ?
That applies equally to Trump.
We heard from the entire democratic party during the Clinton impeachment that there is some exception to lying under oath to obstruction of justice when the purpose is to coverup legal sexual conduct – yet the self same people are reading to give Trump capitol punishment.
These are questions that are all relevant to each of us regarding how we vote.
They have no business in a court of law. And infact bringing them their is not only MORE immoral than an extramarital affair – it actually is the ILLEGAL effort to influence an election that you are trying to reach.
Influencing an election is legal, it is what every political campaign ever does.
Government influencing an election is ILLEGAL.
I wish people could get this. Unfortunately this level of reason seems lost on most. Most either parrot one side or the other and never focus on the principal involved unless it’s their candidate endorsing it or the other sides guy violating it.
Turley has been trying to get people to look at the principal involved for decades now, but every year the comments section just shows that most people just don’t get it.
Glad someone does.
While you’re at it, since you say the crime of concealing damaging information from the public to run for office (New York Penal Law § 175.10) isn’t a crime, you might want to complain how murder isn’t a crime.
You are a liar. Concealing damaging information from the public to run for office isn’t a crime, and New York Penal Law § 175.10 doesn’t say it is. You just made that up.
Not only isn’t it a crime, it can’t be a crime, because it’s protected by the first amendment.
ATS – is there something wrong with actual logic.
The word abortion does not appear ANYWHERE in the constitution.
Even such left wing legal giants as Ruth Bader Ginsberg though Rowe was a mistake.
I personally do not like the Dobbs decision – Though the correct decision would require obliterating a century of bad constitutional law.
There is no right to an abortion – that is an absolutely absurd claim. And it always has been and most people understand that.
Even Pro-lifers get closer to the truth – to the actual rights in their arguments. “My body, my choice”
You have the right to control of your own body – THAT is an actual constitutional right.
The problem – 100 years ago progressive justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said otherwise – “3 generations of imbeciles is enough”
Buck V. Bell.
If you are prepared to overturn Buck V. Bell – which is one of the most repugnant supreme court decisions still in effect,
THEN you can get to a constitutional right to control your own body.
But even that – while it allows you to have an abortion on demand (at your own expense).
It STILL does not give you the right to kill the fetus. Because the Fetus is in your body – and you are free to remove it.
But it is NOT your body.
Regardless, outside the left constitutional rights are NOT made up.
There was no constitutional right to an abortion for 200 years of this countries existence.
Magically a bit more than 40 years ago one was created, now it is gone.
That is what happens when you create rights out of whole cloth.
But if you think there should be a constitutional right to an abortion – pass a constitutional amendment.
Post Dobbs people in states blue and red have sought to put a constitutional right to abortion into their state constitutions.
While I oppose those efforts – because the correct right is the right to control of your own body.
Abortion is a very stupid thing to make into a right.
And rights are not something we just make up.
As the declaration notes – rights are god given and inalienable at worst we discover them – we do not create them.
But even so – should people succeed in amending state constitutions – so be it – that is the law of the land for that state.
That is how the rule of law works – even when we get it wrong.
At the same time as I oppose incorporating a right to abortion into state constitutions – it is also a bad idea for legislators to severely restrict abortion.
The Rowe framework is a good model for States – not because abortion is somehow a right.
But because states should stay out of controversial issues that infringe on freedom where there is not supermajority support.
A right and a freedom are NOT the same thing – Government can not restrict rights. It should take great care resticting freedom.
The life of the mother should always allow an abortion.
The state has a legitimate interest in protecting the life of the fetus – the closer to birth that fetus gets.
And less the closer to conception.
But these are legislative guides – they are NOT constitutional foundations.
John Say said: “If you are prepared to overturn Buck V. Bell – which is one of the most repugnant supreme court decisions still in effect, THEN you can get to a constitutional right to control your own body. But even that – while it allows you to have an abortion on demand (at your own expense). It STILL does not give you the right to kill the fetus. Because the Fetus is in your body – and you are free to remove it. But it is NOT your body.”
I have no problem with overturning judicial precedents that are plainly wrong, including that one. I can also agree with your analysis of the respective rights of mother and fetus, including where the obligation to pay for an abortion lies. IMO that really leaves only one issue to be resolved, but it is a very large one. Assuming that life-saving measures must be applied to the aborted fetus, who is required to be the proxy for that care, including paying for it? Your assertion of the interest of the state in the survival of the fetus would imply that the state is also obligated to foot the bill. Would you agree? BTW, I wasn’t aware that this was Holmes’ decision. The man may not have been to worst SCOTUS justice ever (having also written the “yelling fire in a crowded theater” 1st Amendment exception decision) but I cannot imagine that he isn’t on the short list.
SCOTUS Hears About Abortion And Emergency Medical Care
Justice Sotomayor asks Idaho’s lawyer if it’s true that the state’s ban would prevent abortion in a situation where a woman would otherwise lose an organ or have serious medical complications. Idaho’s lawyer admits it would prevent abortion in those circumstances. “Yes, Idaho law does say that abortions in that case aren’t allowed,” he said.
Justice Alito sympathizes with Idaho’s lawyer, saying it is unfair that other justices are presenting him with hypotheticals about what doctors might do in different situations. This highlights a dynamic that doctors have complained about since Roe v. Wade was overturned: uncertainty about what they can and can’t do.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/24/us/abortion-supreme-court-idaho
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This is extraordinary. Idaho’s lawyer comes before the court and admits that their ‘no exceptions’ abortion ban would let doctors allow a woman’s organs to fail!
But Justice Alito is not upset that Idaho’s law would allow such barbarity. ‘No’, Alito is annoyed that Justice Sotomayor asked such an obvious question!
This incredible situation is upon us because Donald Trump managed to convince ‘Christian’ voters that he was ‘one of them’.
Alto is actually correct – though the Idahoes lawyer is wrong. And I suspect that is really what Alito is saying.
No law can bar the right to self defense.
Where a law explicitly bars self defense the law is unconstitutional.
Where the law AS APPLIED appears to prohibit self defense – local courts are free to rule on an individual AS APPLIED basis that self defense Trump’s the law.
Just as laws barring murder do not need explicit exceptions for self defense.
If a pregnancy is a threat to a woman’s life, or to important organs – there is a self defense right to an abortion.
No law necessary.
You may use deadly force against another human – whether a fetus or not, to prevent death or serious bodily injury.
I beleive the the Idahoe challenge is a Facial challenge – as such – unlikely hypothetical s are irrelevant. And Alito is correct.
IF the challenge is an As Applied challenge – meaning Idaho is trying to prosecute a real woman or doctor for an abortion where there is a clear medical necescity – then any conviction should be overturned – though the law would remain intact.
All this nonsense is doing is pointing out the legal idiocy of the left.
While I would prefer that states that wish to craft abortion laws do so narrowly.
They are not constitutionally obligated to.
Nor are they obligated to carve our a long series of exceptions that the left is looking to leverage into the destruction of the law.
Pre Rowe moderately affluent women circumvented abortion laws by claims that the pregnancy jeophardized their mental healthy.
This was a ruse – but many courts bough it – without changing the law.
Regardless, no state law can eliminate the right to self defense.
There is no need for a “life of the mother” exception in state abortion law – because it is already there.
Turley likes to have it both ways. In the case of Bill Clinton, he lost his right tov govern because of his moral failings, even if the Kenneth Starr case against him was a gotcha. But in the case of Trump, who is morally one step away from a porn-inflected Larry Flynt “Barely Legal” lifestyle, it’s all okay.
Watch the video of a Trump speech in which he invites onto the stage a 17 year old girl, who’s tits are ready to bust out, and who Trump ogles and offers her a job. Yeah Trumspters, that’s your leader.
https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/trump-kisses-and-squeezes-a-woman-on-stage-while-talking-about/1744863328878483/
Nonsense. Clinton finished his term w/o being convicted in his impeachment trial. He lost his law license because he committed perjury. As for Trump eyeing a voluptuous girl, it that’s a sign of bad character, then hundreds of millions of men all over the world are guilty of it as well. IIRC even Jimmy Carter admitted that he had at times secretly “lusted” for women.
Joe has been sniffing womens har for 5 decades. As well as Showering with his preteen daughter – even she thought that was pervy.
He is alleged to have digitially raped Tara Reade, and grabbed the boobs of numerous secret service agents and their wives.
ATS
Bill Clinton lost hsi right to govern ?
When did that happen ?
Clinton was impeached for multiple perjurys
But he was NOT removed by the Senate.
He lost nothing.
Separately there is no “right to govern” – there is a power.
Powers can be taken away – say by impeachment and conviction by the senate.
Rights can not/
Romney never went to law school either. He can’t even speak with any authority on the subject. He just can’t keep his big mouth shut.
Romney attended and graduated from a JD/MBA program at Harvard, quite a feat. I don’t like the guy, but he’s certainly no dummy. And…where do you get the idea that only lawyers can comment credibly on legal issues? That’s the fallacy of “credentialism”. In any case he wasn’t making a legal argument here, just (intentionally?) missing the point and muddying the waters.
Excellent.
I have many problems with Romeny – but then I am not 100% behind Trump.
The GOP needs to avoid the idiocy that Democrats are drowning in right now.
I am Glad Chris Christy was Governor of NJ.
I am glad he is not president.
I am Glad Larry Hogan was Governor of MD, and I hope he becomes Senator.
I would not vote for him as president.
I am Glad that Susan Collins is Senator.
Republicans should be ecstatic to win blue states with republican candidates that have no intention of joining the freedom caucus.
Democrats are allowing the issue of Israel to completely divide their party.
Republicans should not make the same mistake.
Republicans should go with the candidate most likely to win – and accurately reflect the views of their constituents in every district.
And then figure out how to govern with the members that get elected.
On the face of it it appears to be a set up concocted by Cohen. 130 thousand dollars and Cohen mortgaged his own home when DJT just put up 175 million dollars in cash? Even Fani Willis pays cash. Daniels belonged in the Enquirer with the Martian stories.