The other cases will probably get delayed till after the election, and dropped if he wins. It's kind of odd he's been prosecuted for this odd not really a crime stuff but not for the more serious ones.
This is absolutely a crime - you really don’t want to tolerate politicians committing crimes to conceal information from voters. What makes it different is that it’s entirely at the state level so you don’t have political interference: he can’t have judges he appointed running interference and prosecutors are not wondering whether the guy they’re charging will be their boss. I suspect that if the national GOP hadn’t purged opposition figures you’d see more cases brought with the protection of a hypothetical “law and order” wing of the party.
The case is a funny one though - false records to cover up influencing an election through unlawful means but the means were not specified - could be a) campaign finance laws or could be b) NY tax laws or c) other. I think the jury were told any would do and I'm not sure that's published so even after being convicted Trump doesn't know if it's for a, b or c? I'm not a lawyer or even an American - I just follow this out of mild interest.
I'm not a Trump fan but I'm not sure how well this plays out. He's unlikely to get locked up and saying don't vote for Trump - he's guilty of stuff although we are not quite sure what but definitely guilty, may not play that well with electors.
... Wait, how is it not really a crime? It's fraud. Now, it's not terribly _serious_ next to some of the other stuff he's being charged with, but arguably that's part of _why_ it got done quicker; more serious crime takes longer to prosecute.
>Yet to get the case to court, Bragg had to turn the charges into felonies, with longer time limits. So he invented a novel and untested legal theory, maligned even by liberal legal commentators, that the bookkeeping issues were to illegally influence an election – his own 2016 winning election.
It's a special crime invented to get Trump. It's legally dubious that that's ok. I'm not a lawyer but I'm told there is a principle that laws should be clearly laid out rather than cobbled together after the offence and the case may well get overturned on appeal as a result.
Please be more critical about what you read. The source you linked is full of lies and is designed to mislead you.
For instance, this line right here: "But then along came Alvin Bragg, a Left-wing prosecutor who ran for office on the promise that he would do what prior prosecutors had failed to do, to get Donald Trump."
Try to find out where Bragg "ran for office on the promise the he would... get Trump".
I guarantee you, you will not be able to find this, because Bragg didn't actually do that.
Continuing:
There is nothing illegal about paying money to buy silence. It happens every day in court cases and business deals, where money is paid for non-disclosure agreements. And there is nothing illegal about politicians hiding their dirty laundry, happens every campaign.
This is so reductive. It's not what happened. You can do both of these things, *but you can't use campaign money to pay for it*. Because if you did, you'd have to report it, thus defeating the purpose of the payment.
That's the whole reason they had Michael Cohen do it off the books. But again, they had to hide the payment, so they lied about its purpose (legal expenses, they were not), and then they memorialized that lie in corporate records.
Crime 1 - falsification of business records. You can't tell the government a payment was for legal expenses when it was not.
Crime 2 - misuse of campaign funds. You can't use campaign finances to make hush money payments without reporting them, and you can't circumvent that mandated reporting by having your fixer take out a mortgage and then paying him back with pretextual "legal expenses".
Sorry I spent an hour writing this and now I want to post it even though the comment in reply to me is dead. I don't think that comment should be dead except for the first sentence where they came in hot. But it's otherwise important for the conversation going on.
> here is an article outlining his plans and promise on doing just that before he took office
This article does not show that Bragg ran for office promising to prosecute Trump. Quite the opposite. Notwithstanding the article you linked was written after the election, it doesn't even allege what you are claiming.
Bragg, who will be sworn into office on January 1, said he hasn’t been briefed on the facts of the Trump case, which is before a state grand jury. But he indicated he has no plans to disrupt the investigation he’s inheriting even as he also wants to focus on his own agenda.
“This is obviously a consequential case, one that merits the attention of the DA personally,” Bragg said in a recent interview over lunch in Harlem.
He ran on a platform to shake-up the culture of the storied prosecutor office.
Half the article isn't even about Trump, but about Braggs other plan's, you know... the platform on which he actually ran. The article admits Bragg did not campaign on prosecuting Trump when it says "he also wants to focus on his own agenda.", explicitly differentiating Bragg's agenda from prosecuting Trump. The entire "Day One Plans" section is what Bragg actually campaigned on: "reducing gun violence and addressing what he’s called a “humanitarian crisis” at Rikers, the long-troubled New York City jail" according to the article.
Bragg even explicitly says he plans to treat Trump the same as any other citizen, in that he will apply the same standards to Trump: "even though the investigation involves a former president, he would apply “the analysis that we’ve always used, I’ve always used, in multiple offices.” He said that is: “Would you bring this case otherwise? That’s got to be the guiding light.”
So thanks for the article, it proves my point. You won't be able to find one that proves your point, because Bragg didn't actually campaign on prosecuting Trump.
> The falsification was that the records were not properly labeled as campaign expenditures.
Well that's the crux of the matter. Your framing, that they were "not properly labeled" was Trump's defense, and was rejected by a jury after reviewing the evidence. In fact, the jury found the records were not properly labeled intentionally in the commission of a crime.
> which is usually not done by local/state courts
But sometimes is, as in this case.
> prosecutors usually don't have the authority to prosecute on federal campaign laws
But sometimes they do? Either way that's not what happened here, they didn't prosecute on federal campaign laws. All they had to do was show that Trump intended to commit a crime, one of which could be violating campaign finance laws. That's not the same as prosecuting a federal campaign law. And besides, the article lists two additional crimes that were on the table to satisfy that requirement.
> this case is very novel in that regard.
I would expect it to be -- not too many people are prosecuted for the facts of this case because not too many people put themselves in a situation to be prosecuted as such.
> Furthermore, the judge allowed the jurors to differ on what the second crime (the alleged crime the falsified records were covering for) actually was. So, the jury was not unanimous on all facts of the case.
Wrong, the jury was unanimous on the facts required for conviction. If the law requires the commission of an additional crime, and 6 jury members points to crime A, while the other 6 jury members points to crime B, that satisfies the requirement of the law. There's no requirement for them all to have to point to the same crime, why should there be? The point of the upgrade to a felony is to make it so that if you do more crime, you do more time. What is the problem with this, that seems reasonable to me.
> you are usually given ample and crystal-clear instructions at every step of the process, notably getting an easy-to-follow checklist of what facts you have to find to find the defendant guilty.
And sometimes you're not? You keep pointing to "usually this" and "usually that", but not everything is usual, especially in an unusual case. Something being unusual doesn't mean it's wrong or nefarious. And you seem to be speaking as to how things are usually done, but I'm not confident you have the depth/breadth of knowledge or experience in this area to actually claim how things usually are with any authority. There are other resources that have been posted here (a link from justsecurity) which seem to indicate that this law has been used frequently in the past to prosecute individuals.
> Judge Merchan did NOT do this and instead gave somewhat confusing verbal instructions to the jury.
You can't say this, you don't know the jury was confused. If they were confused, they had ample opportunity for clarification from the judge. In fact they used this process to get clarification over the transcript and their instructions. The judge asked them if they needed more info and they said no. So the jury was not confused by their instructions. When they rendered their guilty verdict, they knew exactly what they were doing.
> He specifically says he "will hold him accountable" but does not even entertain the idea that the facts may show Trump is not guilty. In fact, not once did he stated that the facts may end up indicating Trump is not guilty.
The first sentiment expressed by Bragg in that interview is in response to a direct question, that he would be ready to inherit the case from Vance because he has experience in pursuing Trump, and he is "ready to go wherever the facts take [him]".
He reiterates several times the idea he will follow the facts where they lead, and he notes he is speaking carefully because he does not want to be accused of pre-judging the case by Trump. He does note that he has a history of pursuing Trump also in response to a direct question.
When I listen to Bragg saying he will follow the facts, juxtaposed with your statement that he "does not even entertain the idea that the facts may show Trump is not guilty.", I have to ask: what do you think Bragg means when he says he is "ready to go wherever the facts take me". Doesn't that imply he is open to the facts taking him to where Trump is not guilty?
> You were simply incorrect in trying to split a single charge/crime into 2.
Okay well I'm not a lawyer, but that doesn't mean I didn't watch the trials and haven't been following. What I was trying to clumsily express was the point from the article you linked: "The third “unlawful” action could be violating the Federal Election Campaign Act, meaning Cohen’s payment to Daniels was a contribution to Trump’s campaign that exceeded the legal limit—which Cohen already pleaded guilty to."
> No, federal election crimes are not prosecutable by state/local courts. Supreme court has ruled on this many times.
But he did not prosecute a federal crime. I don't know how you keep coming back to that. What he prosecuted was a state crime, which as an element includes an intent to commit another crime, which may or may not be a federal crime. Prosecuting an intent to commit a crime is not prosecuting a crime.
> The judge should have pointed out this problem in the case initially, but instead let the case go ahead with Bragg citing violation of federal campaign laws as a matter of fact for the case.
Because it's not actually a problem. You keep overstating what happened. Bragg did not have to cite violation of any other laws. He had to show intent to violate a law. Intent is hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. It was the jury who found Trump's intent to be a matter of fact.
> As such, there is a very strong case of overturning the case, possibly with reversible error cited given that the judge allowed the case to go forward through misapplication of state law by allowing prosecution to cite federal campaign law.
I mean, I guess we will see :shrug:. On the other hand it might be perfectly fine, and the appeals court will tell us.
> The problem with the jury not agreeing with what the secondary crime (hidden by record falsification) is that it adds ambiguity to the facts of the case and makes the case for appeal much stronger.
I don't see that as a real problem.
> also possibly indicates the jury was not actually unanimous on the intent requirement for the felony charge
No, the jury was in fact unambiguously unanimous on the intent requirement. Each and every one of them was asked if they agreed with the verdict as read, and every one agreed. That's the end of discussion on that matter.
> Do you think it's okay if a jury does not get sufficient instruction on how to interpret the relevant laws and apply facts for the case?
As someone who often has to give clear instructions to people (in the case of proctoring exams) I know there is no set of words you can say to 12 people that will be understood by all of them in the same exact way. For this reason, I realize that dialog and clarification are necessary for resolving misunderstandings, and that's exactly what the process allowed for at trial.
> The jury had to ask multiple times for clarification on the jury instructions. They specifically had to ask the judge to reread the instructions multiple times because they were not given a written copy of the instructions!
So? As I was listening live, I heard trial lawyers predicting this would happen on the basis that it always happens. As I said, people need clarification no matter how clear you (think you) are. The fact they asked for clarification should be evidence that everything was clear in the end. Because they were asked by the judge if everything was clear, and they answered in the affirmative. You are here asking me to not trust the jury because you feel the instructions were unclear, but you weren't even there.
> Ask yourself, if you had just sat on the jury for such a long trial and the judge finally read out a 55-page jury instruction, would you recall all the instructions required for your job?
No, but I would have asked for clarification until I was clear, exactly as the jury did.
Regardless, this is just the law in NY, and in fact had they been given a copy of the instructions, that would have been grounds for an appeal:
The prohibition against jurors being provided with a copy of the written legal instructions stems from a 1987 decision by the New York Court of Appeals — the state’s highest court — in a case called People v. Owens, which involved a drug sale.
The court found that “the distribution of written instructions to the jury is not expressly authorized by law, and error in such submissions cannot be deemed harmless,” meaning that providing the instructions would result in a conviction being overturned.
Personally I would give the jury a copy. But then again I can see the downside, as it would leave them interpreting a document to find clarification rather than interacting with the judge. I can see the merit on forcing them to ask the judge, because ultimately he is the expert, not the document, which no matter how well-intentioned and crafted, probably contains some bugs. So its better to have him be the authority rather than the instructions he put together.
Also clears things up for appeal, because the judge can ask them if they are clear on the instructions, and they can answer in the affirmative or not, so we don't have to wonder if they were unclear about things after the fact. They are each on record under oath saying they are clear about the instructions, what more do you want?
We can agree to disagree on Bragg's intent - I don't see any movement from either of us there. I cannot give reasonable doubt that Bragg had no personal and political ambitions to prosecute trump and create a sham trumping up of charges in order to claim fame for making Trump a felon. He had a long history of intent towards Trump leading up to and during his campaign for office.
> I don't see that as a real problem.
To clarify why the admission of arguments involving federal election laws are fatal for the case, I will defer to an anonymous 'Robert' on another forum I follow who said it very well (slightly edited fix some very minor grammatical issues):
All jurors had to agree that Trump acted to conceal another or third crime. They did not have to agree on what the third crime was. If one juror failed agree that a third crime was likely committed with intent, then the prosecution would have failed to show that the decision of the jury included all 12 jurors or in other words that the decision unanimous. They would all have to find all the elements of the crime they selected were proven by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt. The problem is that by including a federal crime as one of the possible third crimes, the judge, without objection from the prosecution, included a crime which the prosecution had no power or authority to prove (as state prosecutors, they cannot prove a federal crime). If the jurors agreed on the elements of a crime for which there was no proof, or for which the prosecution lacked the authority to prove, by law it is not "proven". Since the judge did not require the jurors to state which third crime they had selected, it is not possible to conclude they did not pick as the third crime one which had not been proven by the prosecution, and thus it is not possible to state or conclude that the verdict was unanimous. The identity of the possible third crimes came very late in the case; it was not identified in the indictment. Had that been in the indictment, it would be clear that there was lacking an essential element for the case to proceed. That omission is not cured by postponing the identity until jury instructed.
So, there was clear error from the judge and prosecutor that led to error from the jury, meaning the judgement will absolutely get overturned. Given this and other potential issues in the case, there is a non-zero chance of reversible error being found, which would be a very serious matter.
The judge completely failed here, and had at least 3 possible options to deal with this issue:
1. Reject the case as presented in the indictment. Bragg could revise the case to only deal with elements that are within his authority.
2. Make arguments presented from Bragg regarding federal election law inadmissible, striking them from the record and/or instructing the jury to disregard all arguments involving federal election law for their deliberation. This option still isn't great given how late this would be in the case and could still get the judgement overturned on appeal, but would have at least shown the judge remotely cared about the glaring problem.
3. Instruct the jury to state which tertiary crime (unlawful behavior that leads to violation of NY election law) they believe Trump committed. If none of the jury listed federal election law as part of this, then there could be valid judgement. Again, not great and likely would get hammered on in appeal.
The fact that the judge did nothing to attempt to deal with glaring issue is pretty insane. It will be a pretty ugly stain on the judge's career once all of this is said and done.
> I don't see that as a real problem.
Again, we can agree to disagree on other elements involving the jury, including the jury instruction clarity and process.
> Regardless, this is just the law in NY, and in fact had they been given a copy of the instructions, that would have been grounds for an appeal
That is an incorrect, very narrow reading of a previous case judgement in NY. The case judgement said that written instructions are not mandated by law, and any errors related to the written instruction are not harmless. This means that any error identified within or involving dissemination of the written instructions to the jury would be grounds for overturning a conviction, which frankly is usually already covered by other laws and precedents around jury instructions. None of this actually prohibits a NY judge from giving written jury instructions, just that NY judge usually won't to prevent any possible unintentional error that will get the case overturned.
This NY-specific precedent is very controversial, and many other states routinely give written copies of instructions to juries so they can review it as they need.
> He had a long history of intent towards Trump leading up to and during his campaign for office.
Noting that most Democrats have said something negative about Trump in their careers, would you say that Trump cannot be investigated by Democrats due to conflict of interest?
> Robert
I’m wholly uninterested I. What “Robert” from some other forum has to say, I don’t know why you are bringing him up here. Is he an expert? An jurist? A lawyer?
Either way he in making the error many here keep making, and that is, I’ll say it again, they did not have to prosecute or prove a federal case. That was not the law. The law was to prove intent, and the jury found intent. That is a prosecution of NY state law, even if the intent was to violate federal law.
If you want to show the prosecution was not right, you’ll have to argue against the intent part, not that state prosecutors are barred from prosecuting federal crimes — because no federal crime was prosecuted by state prosecutors in this case. Trump has not been found guilty of a federal crime in this case and the NY state law didn’t require him to have been.
A lot of the objection about the verdict seems to come down to a being unhappy that the law as written is being applied to someone people support. I can sympathize — it’s tough when people you admire are revealed to be criminals and dirt bags. People are going through some feelings, I can appreciate that.
Still, it’s interesting to me, because in all these words I don’t see people here defending the conduct or saying it didn’t happen, which is the key takeaway for me.
> It will be a pretty ugly stain on the judge's career once all of this is said and done.
You’re speaking very confidently here about a very unusual and unprecedented situation, and you are citing “Robert from another forum” as an authority, so I am not sure where this confidence comes from but suffice to say I’m not as certain about the future as you are. I wish I was
> This NY-specific precedent is very controversial, and many other states routinely give written copies of instructions to juries so they can review it as they need.
Okay but it is common in NY, it was done out of an abundance of caution to preserve and maintain the integrity of the trial, and in the end all the jurors affirmed under oath and on the record that they were not confused by the instructions. So we are not left to wonder and this isn’t a basis for appeal.
Yeah I agree it looks like a bodge to get Trump for violating campaign finance laws which the court didn't have jurisdiction to do. I'm guessing it may get overturned for that reason.
