Former president trump indicted.

Ag3ma

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That's a new one (checks were faked?) Troubling I've heard that the indictment fails to specify a law that Trump broke.
The indictment pretty clearly identifies 34 instances that Trump may have broken the law: keeping false business records. That is a crime. It's conventionally the level of a misdemeanour, but misdemeanours are still crimes.

What's got everyone het up is that they have been charged as felonies. Upgrading them to a felony requires an untested interpretation of law that when this sort of misdemeanour is used to facilitate or cover up a felony, it becomes a felony itself. The felonies that were being breached are not clearly stated, but from wider context appear to be a) state campaign finance crime, b) federal campaign finance crime, c) tax crime.

So, at base here, what Trump's defenders are really arguing is that his crime was not as serious as he's being charged for, not that he didn't commit a crime.
 
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gorfias

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The indictment pretty clearly identifies 34 instances that Trump may have broken the law: keeping false business records. That is a crime. It's conventionally the level of a misdemeanour, but misdemeanours are still crimes.

What's got everyone het up is that they have been charged as felonies. Upgrading them to a felony requires an untested interpretation of law that when this sort of misdemeanour is used to facilitate or cover up a felony, it becomes a felony itself. The felonies that were being breached are not clearly stated, but from wider context appear to be a) state campaign finance crime, b) federal campaign finance crime, c) tax crime.

So, at base here, what Trump's defenders are really arguing is that his crime was not as serious as he's being charged for, not that he didn't commit a crime.
From the link I posted from Politico,

"Bragg could have charged Trump with 34 misdemeanor counts, but under New York law they become felonies if the falsification was done “with the intent to commit another crime.”


This is where Bragg’s indictment has done a disservice to the public and to Trump himself. Beyond a general reference to a violation of “election laws” and a passing reference to taxes, the indictment and statement of facts do not specify what “other crimes” Trump allegedly intended to commit."

I'd like an actual statute enumerated so as not to prejudice Trump in his ability to defend himself. It is typical in an answer to a complaint that you provide such information.
 
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Silvanus

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That's what 34 of the 34 felonies boil down to basically though lol.
Trump paid his Lawyer from the wrong account we have evidence this happened because he tried to cover it up here which would then count as false financial statements if he did it.
Right, you got there in the end! Well done!

So not just "paying from the wrong account". Covering it up. And the effects of that: being tax evasion, falsely reporting the purpose of the payment (therefore hiding it from proper scrutiny), and improperly influencing the 2016 election.
 
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Silvanus

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This is where Bragg’s indictment has done a disservice to the public and to Trump himself. Beyond a general reference to a violation of “election laws” and a passing reference to taxes, the indictment and statement of facts do not specify what “other crimes” Trump allegedly intended to commit."
It's not a "passing reference", though; that shows you clearly haven't actually looked at the charges.

Tax evasion, falsely reporting the purpose of the payment, hiding it from proper scrutiny, and making the payment to influence the 2016 election.
 

Dwarvenhobble

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Right, you got there in the end! Well done!

So not just "paying from the wrong account". Covering it up. And the effects of that: being tax evasion, falsely reporting the purpose of the payment (therefore hiding it from proper scrutiny), and improperly influencing the 2016 election.
Going to be pretty hard to prove even with 34 chances lol
 

Trunkage

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Right, you got there in the end! Well done!

So not just "paying from the wrong account". Covering it up. And the effects of that: being tax evasion, falsely reporting the purpose of the payment (therefore hiding it from proper scrutiny), and improperly influencing the 2016 election.
I mean, you need to go further, particularly with Dwarvenhobble. He keeps going on about Free Speech etc

These payments were paid with the deliberate intent to sink news articles. In effect, its like Biden asking for his sons nudes to be taken down. But 1) Trump paid for it to never come out 2) wasn't relying on TOS of a company to remove nudes 3)

Like, if you listen to Matt Taibbi, seeing Hunter was apparently of national interest. If this is true, then so is the (at least) three seperate stories that Trump covered up

If you cared about 'Free Speech', you would care about anyone covering it up. That is far more important than worrying about cancelling. Because all cancelling is a reaction to speech some people find offensive. What Trump did was pay to make sure the free speech wasn't spoken.
 

Silvanus

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Going to be pretty hard to prove even with 34 chances lol
Yeah, that's true-- this kind of charge, where intent is an integral part of the case, is notoriously hard to prove.

I'm not really convinced that indicting him on this stuff was the right call.
 
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Trunkage

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Nope if you read the sheet basically all the charges are from 2017 and it goes like this for them

1) Records indicate a payment of a Lawyers invoice on this date this was fraudulent to report as a business payment.
2) The Payment was recorded in official ledgers as [reference number] reporting it in the ledger is a fraudulent representation of it as a business expense.
3) In support of the payment a cheque stub marked [refence number] was submitted onto file, submitting this cheque stub as evidence constitutes fraud.

It's 12 instances they're arguing were some secret payments being made in an illegal way to his lawyer but with 11 of them they've added each individual part of the recording of the payment process as it's own fraud charge.
So this all happened ... when he took over as president....

That's.... way worse
 

Trunkage

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Yeah, that's true-- this kind of charge, where intent is an integral part of the case, is notoriously hard to prove.

I'm not really convinced that indicting him on this stuff was the right call.
Yeah, this is, by far, the weakest case out of the 4
 

Dwarvenhobble

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So this all happened ... when he took over as president....

That's.... way worse
I mean not hugely in my view.

It's was a nothing burger before, it's now a nothing burger and cheese.

They're trying to get Trump on paying his lawyer the wrong way using campaign funds to pay him and then putting this stuff in his business records to cover it up.

Does it matter so much which account Trump paid with to people?

If he paid with his campaign account realised then payed the money back in the same day from his other accounts does it matter so very much?

They're not even arguing they have evidence he payed from the wrong account though. They're hoping challenging these payment will get them something else they could then try and use pretty much, which I think may be illegal or fishing for evidence in this case more than actually trying to charge him for the actual crimes he's accused of here.
 

Trunkage

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I mean not hugely in my view.

It's was a nothing burger before, it's now a nothing burger and cheese.

They're trying to get Trump on paying his lawyer the wrong way using campaign funds to pay him and then putting this stuff in his business records to cover it up.

Does it matter so much which account Trump paid with to people?

If he paid with his campaign account realised then payed the money back in the same day from his other accounts does it matter so very much?

They're not even arguing they have evidence he payed from the wrong account though. They're hoping challenging these payment will get them something else they could then try and use pretty much, which I think may be illegal or fishing for evidence in this case more than actually trying to charge him for the actual crimes he's accused of here.
What do you mean nothingburger? Like, it's only worth a few months or a year of jail? Because, I'd agree

If you mean that it's no jail time... his lawyer went to jail over these specific events and Trump asked him to do it. So, that would be nonsense
 
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Dwarvenhobble

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What do you mean nothingburger? Like, it's only worth a few months or a year of jail? Because, I'd agree

If you mean that it's no jail time... his lawyer went to jail over these specific events and Trump asked him to do it. So, that would be nonsense
equally dumb in my view for his lawyer to end up in jail over if if he truly was only following the instructions of his client which failure to do so could have seen him disbarred.
 

Trunkage

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equally dumb in my view for his lawyer to end up in jail over if if he truly was only following the instructions of his client which failure to do so could have seen him disbarred.
If you do something criminal, you go to jail, even if someone else asked you to do it.

If you are a drug dealer listening to a drug lord to sell drugs illegally, you are still in trouble. Personally, I think the person ASKING should be in more trouble because, it's highly likely that they are asking multiple people. But I've seen the US justice system. I've noticed that drug lords get little in thr way of punishment. It shouldn't matter if you name is Rick Ross or Richard Sacklet. But it does
 
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The Rogue Wolf

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equally dumb in my view for his lawyer to end up in jail over if if he truly was only following the instructions of his client which failure to do so could have seen him disbarred.
Uh, no. In fact, exactly the opposite. According to Rule 1.2(d):

A lawyer shall not counsel a client to engage, or assist a client, in conduct that the lawyer knows is illegal or fraudulent, except that the lawyer may discuss the legal consequences of any proposed course of conduct with a client.
 

Silvanus

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