Monday, April 15th: First Ever Criminal Trial for a Former US President

[jaF0]

Meanwhile, Alina Habba, Trump's E. Jean Carroll's case lawyer, appeared in the court hallway at Trump's trial for a cameo, spouting that the lawyers in his case were not getting respected, so she says:

"I plan, for the next six weeks, to truly just be spitting the truth and giving people facts they may not be hearing while he's in court."

Has HubbaHubbaHaba ever 'spit' the truth?



(Perhaps she doesn't swallow?)

 

[SmokingFap]

What election fraud?<

Say it with me, Bragg is trying to catch Trump in a perjury trap. There is no crime. Bragg, James and Fanny Willis should be disbarred.

It's funny how you people keep saying "there was no crime", when Trump keeps getting charged with crimes that are actually on the books and enforceable. Do you really think it's possible to charge people with "non-crimes"?

 

[SmokingFap]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jul/9/president-biden-is-liar/

Have you ever wondered how President Biden could lie so often and so egregiously? Have you ever asked yourself how anyone can stand before millions of people on a near-daily basis and say things that are so blatantly false and do so with a straight face and an apparent clear conscience?

By almost any measure, Mr. Biden is a proven fraud and a pathological liar of the highest order.


Over the past few weeks alone, the president has repeatedly lied about his business dealings with his corrupt son. He has lied about inflation. He has lied about gas prices. He has lied about creating new jobs. He has lied about the national deficit. And he has lied about our nation’s borders.

So there’s that!

You're lying. So there's that.

 

[stxjimmy]

It's funny how you people keep saying "there was no crime", when Trump keeps getting charged with crimes that are actually on the books and enforceable. Do you really think it's possible to charge people with "non-crimes"?

Perhaps that’s why the lit deps pretend to have familiarity with 1984, which seems more and more common lately.

 

[butters]

Pecker leaves no doubts about trump being aware of the "catch & kill" methodology, having discussed it at a meeting WITH trump and cohen who invited him there to discuss how his publication could help the trump campaign

He spoke of a plan hatched with Mr Trump and Mr Cohen during a 2015 meeting at Trump Tower, when he offered to be the Trump campaign's "eyes and ears". He told Mr Trump he would look out for people selling negative stories about him, so they could be bought and suppressed, he said.

Mr Pecker said the Enquirer later paid $US30,000 to a doorman at Trump Tower, Dino Sajudin, who claimed Mr Trump fathered a child with a maid.

Mr Pecker said it turned out the story wasn’t true. But if it were, and if he had published it, "it would probably be the biggest sale of the National Enquirer since the death of Elvis Presley", he said.

He decided to buy and bury it "because of the potential embarrassment it would have to the campaign and Mr Trump".

Mr Pecker also gave evidence about the role of one of his top editors, Australian-born journalist Dylan Howard.

"I told him that we were going to try to help the campaign," Mr Pecker said. "And to do that, we want to keep this as quiet as possible."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-24/donald-trump-hush-money-trial-david-pecker-court/103761246

 

[ByteMe13]

Pecker leaves no doubts about trump being aware of the "catch & kill" methodology, having discussed it at a meeting WITH trump and cohen who invited him there to discuss how his publication could help the trump campaign






https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-24/donald-trump-hush-money-trial-david-pecker-court/103761246

“Trump screwed by Pecker”

 

[butters]

On the witness stand just feet from the former president on Monday and Tuesday, Pecker, the former CEO of American Media, Inc., or AMI, detailed how he, together with Trump and his former fixer, Michael Cohen, conspired to exploit the National Enquirer and AMI’s cadre of other celebrity gossip tabloids and magazines to build the Trump brand and influence the results of the 2016 presidential election.

Pecker, who told jurors he’d known Trump since the late 1980s, said the trio hatched the alleged scheme at a 2015 meeting at Trump Tower, where he agreed to publish pro-Trump stories while working to hide unsavory ones, taking them “off the market” by purchasing the exclusive rights to ensure they never got published.

The publisher and his longtime friend, “Donald,” as Pecker said he’d always called him, long had a “mutually beneficial” friendship that saw them beef up each other’s bottom line. Pecker’s complicity in pushing pro-Trump stories boosted sales of the National Enquirer while also elevating Trump’s political brand, he testified.

"Donald Trump and Michael, they asked me what can I do and what my magazines could do to help the campaign,” Pecker testified before a rapt jury and frantically typing press corps in the drab 100 Centre St. courtroom on Tuesday about the 2015 meeting prosecutors say catalyzed the hush money scheme.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/othe...anipulation-that-helped-trump-win/ar-AA1nBcWH

 

[AWhole6]

Exactly! They should just declare Trump an enemy combatant and send him to GITMO.

Ten times the President that Biden is! Look around fool! Ok Jack?

 

[jomar]

Oh look, another spreadsheet alt.

I dunno. I’m clearly no trump fan, but not sure I quite see how the prosecution threads the needle on this. Hiding payments and declaring a buy off as a business expense is a misdemeanor if I understand it correctly. And both sides do all kinds of shit to influence elections. From attack ads that swiftboat candidates to asking for help from the Russians. I mean, wouldn’t Lee Atwater be behind bars for his fake polls and other crazy shit? (Yeah I know he’s dead.)

 

[jaF0]

Missing the SS in the ID though.

 

[desecration]

Trump's Trial Painting a Damning Portrait of Him

 

[icanhelp1]

It's funny how you people keep saying "there was no crime", when Trump keeps getting charged with crimes that are actually on the books and enforceable. Do you really think it's possible to charge people with "non-crimes"?

Can you say political persecution?

 

[icanhelp1]

You're lying. So there's that.

Don’t take my word for it, look it up. Start with inflation is transitory. Withdrawal from Afghanistan was a total success. Bidenomics is working. His uncle was eaten by cannibals.

 

[ByteMe13]

Trolls gonna troll. Grifters gonna grift

 

[DeluxAuto]

View attachment 2342202

 

[SgtSpiderMan]

Can you say political persecution?

Why wasn’t it political persecution when Obama did the same?

 

[dmallord]

Oh look, another spreadsheet alt.

I dunno. I’m clearly no trump fan, but not sure I quite see how the prosecution threads the needle on this. Hiding payments and declaring a buy off as a business expense is a misdemeanor if I understand it correctly. And both sides do all kinds of shit to influence elections. From attack ads that swiftboat candidates to asking for help from the Russians. I mean, wouldn’t Lee Atwater be behind bars for his fake polls and other crazy shit? (Yeah I know he’s dead.)

See #413.

I covered the overview there on how this becomes more than a misdemeanor as it goes directly to the election interference issue.

Hope that helps.

 

[jomar]

See #413.

I covered the overview there on how this becomes more than a misdemeanor as it goes directly to the election interference issue.

Hope that helps.

Thanks. In post #413 you wrote:

“Paying hush money by itself is not a crime. The crime alleged in this case is felony document falsification, as the judge detailed. That requires intent to conceal, aid or commit another crime. Here, the prosecution alleges that the intent was to violate federal campaign finance laws and also the state statute prohibiting the ‘unlawful influence’ of an election — i.e., election interference.”

So, and I may be paying much closer attention later in the game than I should have 18 pages in and post jury selection, let me summarize. An old misdemeanor crime of hiding a payment as a business expense is claimed by the prosecution as being felony document falsification because it was an attempt to conceal, aid or commit another crime, that being an unlawful influence of an election. Specifically, concealed payment to stormy by trump via Cohen constitutes election interference by not allowing negative information about trump (stormy) to surface just ahead of the election, not to mention the catch and kill program at the Enquirer.

And how would payment violate federal campaign finance law unless it came from designated campaign funds, which isn’t an issue it seems.

But like I said in an earlier post shit goes on all the time to influence elections and Lee Atwater back in the day was a mastermind of scurrilous tactics-he’d publish results of made up polls ffs so how would that not fall under election interference if suppressing information does? And a google doesn’t return an Atwater charge. But, things change over time, no?

The prosecution got it into court so there’s merit, but they’ve got their work cut out.

 

[Rightguide]

Alvin Bragg has his Trump trial, all he needs now is a crime​

By Jonathan Turley
Published April 24, 2024, 3:38 a.m. ET

For many of us in the legal community, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump borders on the legally obscene: an openly political prosecution based on a theory even legal pundits dismiss. Yet Monday the prosecution seemed to actually make a case for obscenity.

It wasn’t the gratuitous introduction of an uncharged alleged tryst with a former Playboy Bunny or expected details on the relationship with an ex-porn star. It was the criminal theory itself that seemed crafted around the obscenity standard that Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously described in 1984’s Jacobellis v. Ohio: “I shall not today attempt further to define [it]. … But I know it when I see it.”

The prosecution must show Trump falsified business records in “furtherance of another crime.” After months of confusion on just what crime underpinned the indictment, the prosecution offered a new theory so ambiguous and undefined, it would have made Stewart blush.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury that in listing payments to Stormy Daniels as a “legal expense,” Trump violated this New York law: “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 Trump committed a crime by conspiring to unlawfully promote his own candidacy, by paying to quash a potentially embarrassing story and then reimbursing his lawyer Michael Cohen with other legal expenses.

The rest here: https://nypost.com/2024/04/24/opinion/alvin-bragg-has-his-trump-trial-all-he-needs-now-is-a-crime/

The bottom line, NDAs are legal.

 

[Bn2f]

By Jonathan Turley

So Trump committed a crime by conspiring to unlawfully promote his own candidacy, by paying to quash a potentially embarrassing story and then reimbursing his lawyer Michael Cohen with other legal expenses.

I would put “unlawfully” after “candidacy” but I’m quibbling here because it seems to me that Turley just explained it to you.

 

[butters]

Pecker: "We committed a campaign violation"

^^that caused a bit of a kerfuffle, with requests to have that answer struck from the records and with both sets of legals up at the bench now

the above quote is from the reported blow-by-blow from the courtroom
*smirk*

 

[HisArpy]

^^that caused a bit of a kerfuffle, with requests to have that answer struck from the records and with both sets of legals up at the bench now

the above quote is from the reported blow-by-blow from the courtroom
*smirk*

This is because it's a "conclusion of law" and inadmissible as testimony from a witness.

 

[butters]

Pecker also stated that he had conversations with Hope Hicks and wotserface regarding the stories

and this:
from Matthew Haag

Asked about Trump’s motivations to quash stories about his alleged affairs, Pecker said that his concerns were electoral, not personal. He also said that Trump thanked him for orchestrating catch-and-kill deals in front of James Comey, then the F.B.I. director.

from Jesse McKinley, reporting from the courthouse

Seemingly important question here, as prosecutors ask David Pecker whether Trump was concerned about his wife or family finding out about his alleged affairs when he was campaigning for office. Pecker responds no. This suggests that Trump’s worries were electoral, not personal.

from Jonah Bromwich, reporting from the courthouse

Pecker has just given us a very detailed description of Jared Kushner walking him into Trump Tower, and then into Trump’s office, shortly before Trump's inauguration as president. In the office were four noteworthy people: James Comey, Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus and Mike Pompeo. Three were Republicans who would go on to work in the Trump administration, while the fourth, Comey, would eventually become one of Trump’s chief adversaries. Into that tableau walks Pecker, to be asked about Karen McDougal by the president-elect

Pecker says that in front of Comey, the head of the F.B.I., Trump thanked him for purchasing the stories — and likely committing at least one crime in the process, as Pecker well knew.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/0...y-trial-news#david-pecker-trump-tower-meeting

 

[icanhelp1]

Alvin Bragg has his Trump trial, all he needs now is a crime​

By Jonathan Turley
Published April 24, 2024, 3:38 a.m. ET

For many of us in the legal community, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump borders on the legally obscene: an openly political prosecution based on a theory even legal pundits dismiss. Yet Monday the prosecution seemed to actually make a case for obscenity.

It wasn’t the gratuitous introduction of an uncharged alleged tryst with a former Playboy Bunny or expected details on the relationship with an ex-porn star. It was the criminal theory itself that seemed crafted around the obscenity standard that Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously described in 1984’s Jacobellis v. Ohio: “I shall not today attempt further to define [it]. … But I know it when I see it.”

The prosecution must show Trump falsified business records in “furtherance of another crime.” After months of confusion on just what crime underpinned the indictment, the prosecution offered a new theory so ambiguous and undefined, it would have made Stewart blush.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury that in listing payments to Stormy Daniels as a “legal expense,” Trump violated this New York law: “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 Trump committed a crime by conspiring to unlawfully promote his own candidacy, by paying to quash a potentially embarrassing story and then reimbursing his lawyer Michael Cohen with other legal expenses.

The rest here: https://nypost.com/2024/04/24/opinion/alvin-bragg-has-his-trump-trial-all-he-needs-now-is-a-crime/

The bottom line, NDAs are legal.

Maybe we have a countdown to when Bragg drops the case out of embarrassment. Merchan is slowly starting to look like a fool for entertaining this fraud case.

 

[Bn2f]

Maybe we have a countdown to when Bragg drops the case out of embarrassment. Merchan is slowly starting to look like a fool for entertaining this fraud case.

Sadly, and again, you come carrying water for a person you cannot claim is innocent.