US Politics Thread 2021-24

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by mapuc

This someone in this case is one of these two woman who got money from Trump to keep quiet/mouth shut. The crime here is that he booked it as a payment to his lawyer.

Markus

If Trump was a woman and a two timing hoochie mama cheating on her husband and sponsoring a good time dance party in the white house. All the women would band together telling us it's just a non-event and picket in front of the courthouse chanting girl power.

[August]

Originally Posted by mapuc

This someone in this case is one of these two woman who got money from Trump to keep quiet/mouth shut. The crime here is that he booked it as a payment to his lawyer.

Markus

They are not victims of fraud Markus. They were not promised anything they did not receive. There has to be a victim of fraud and they do not qualify as such.

Otherwise you have at best a misdemeanor of bad book keeping which the statute of limitations expired on several years ago.

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by August

They are not victims of fraud Markus. They were not promised anything they did not receive. There has to be a victim of fraud and they do not qualify as such.

Otherwise you have at best a misdemeanor of bad book keeping which the statute of limitations expired on several years ago.

The fraud comes in by getting illegal tax write offs. He defrauded you.

[August]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

The fraud comes in by getting illegal tax write offs. He defrauded you.

He's not charged with tax fraud Budda.

[Buddahaid]

Correct, it's books and entry fraud. Why do people cook the books?

[August]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

Correct, it's books and entry fraud. Why do people cook the books?

We'll see but a lot of people are saying it's a pretty weak case. I know you got your hopes up but remember the last dozen times they have been dashed.

More than half a decade after the Trump Organization reimbursed convicted perjurer Michael Cohen for a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, Alvin Bragg has bet $200 million of taxpayer money and his political career on the 34 felony counts with which he charged Donald Trump today. The former president has denied all wrongdoing. Contrary to the left-leaning media's assertion that Trump would be indicted on conspiracy charges, all 34 counts are charges of falsifying business records in the first degree.

Unlike the misdemeanor charge of falsifying business records in the second degree, the first degree felony has a statute of limitations of five years, not two. But every indictment listed occurred in 2017, outside the statute of limitations.

Still, the biggest barrier to Bragg's prosecution may not be the Manhattan district attorney's dubious legal inventions to claim that Trump's "tolled time" outside of New York City allows for extending the statute of limitations. Rather, the charges themselves require Trump to have defrauded someone in writing off his payments (or repayments) to Cohen as a business expense. New York law stipulates that someone can only be guilty of falsifying business records "when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof."

Ignore the notion of the underlying crime here, which in Trump's case, would not be under Bragg's jurisdiction. If Trump had an intent to defraud — and New York State has a high bar for what constitutes "intent" — there has to be a victim whom Trump was defrauding.

Recall that, by bookkeeping the payments to Cohen as services paid rather than a reimbursement, the Trump Organization theoretically created a greater tax liability than it would have otherwise. After all, business expense reimbursements are not considered taxable. So is the Trump Organization supposed to have defrauded itself?

As evinced by Bragg's entire crusade thus far, he views the victim as the voter — as though the country would have been shocked to learn that Trump was a serial philanderer had Cohen been unable to pay Stormy Daniels in exchange for her signing a non-disclosure agreement. That seems like dubious legal alchemy. Unless Bragg can invent another victim of Trump's supposed intent to defraud, the 2024 hopeful has much to be optimistic about.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...-felony-counts

[MaDef]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

The fraud comes in by getting illegal tax write offs. He defrauded you.

Fraud:

Fraud becomes a crime when it is a “knowing misrepresentation of the truth or concealment of a material fact to induce another to act to his or her detriment” (Black’s Law Dictionary).

Please take special note of the highlighted portion. the felony charges are smoke and mirrors by the prosecutor.

[Dowly]

Since the "intent to defraud" seems to be the sticking point, here's an essay that provides information on how it is handled in this case:
https://www.justsecurity.org/85831/t...iness-records/


TL;DR:

Indeed, the jurisdiction in which this case will be brought – the First Department of New York – has settled law on the issue that defines “intent to defraud” in broad terms that cover the allegations in the Trump case.

[Buddahaid]

Pence will not appeal and will be giving testimony to Jack Smith now.

[Rockstar]

Alan Dershowitz tells Charlie Kirk he believes Trump will be convicted—but verdict will be overturned on appeal

https://humanevents.com/2023/04/05/a...rned-on-appeal

Charlie Kirk recently had lawyer Alan Dershowitz on The Charlie Kirk show and asked him if there was any chance the lawyer would join former President Trump’s legal team amid the charges that the former president falsified business records. Kirk kicked off the segment by suggesting that Dershowitz could get Trump’s case dismissed “very quickly,” but this was apparently not the lawyer’s opinion. Dershowitz started off by saying that he has a policy of “only representing somebody once and so I’m not a lawyer, but I would certainly be happy to participate in the court of public opinion.”

Dershowitz went on to suggest that Trump’s case will likely not be dismissed, saying that “I don’t think that if you had the best lawyers in the history of the world, Abraham Lincoln and John Marshall, a New York City judge would dismiss this case because that New York City judge’s life would be over.”

The lawyer said that the judge would be mocked if he or she were to dismiss Trump. Dershowitz continued by saying that he does think Trump will be convicted by “your jury who voted for Bragg.” However, he added that the case would “be reversed on appeal,” and it “will never be affirmed all the way up to the Supreme Court.”

The lawyer’s comments come after Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records, which carries with it a maximum jail sentence of 136 years. However, that did not stop Trump from speaking at Mar-a-Lago after his arraignment, saying that the “fake case was brought only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election.”

The boondoggle continues. Neither party want him to run and you just don’t screw with the intel community. Trump should feel very lucky. If he lived in Russia he would have accidentally fallen out of a window years ago,

[Buddahaid]

If he really wants to make America great again, he needs to withdraw from running for 2024, unfortunately, he can't separate what's good for the US from what's good for him.

[Buddahaid]

This segment is all analysis of the indictment without the slant. Sure, the lawyers are in favor of guilty verdicts, but they are more interested in the legal aspects.

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

If he really wants to make America great again, he needs to withdraw from running for 2024, unfortunately, he can't separate what's good for the US from what's good for him.

What the hell happened to us. That decision is supposed to made by the candidate and the people who vote. What we have IMO is a case of election engineering and interference by those who are supposed to be working to preserve that. And those who are in elected office are scared to say anything about it.

[Dowly]

Eh, all his legal troubles are his own doing. Take this current New York case for example; Trump could have paid Stormy Daniels out of his own pocket, but instead he took the shady way and is now in trouble for it. And the Georgia election case and the Mar-a-Lago documents cases are both, again, his own fault.

None of this requires any behind the curtain stuff, just one very, very dumb person.


***


In other news:
Clarence Thomas has accepted undisclosed luxury trips from GOP megadonor for decades, report says

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted secret luxury trips from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow for more than two decades in apparent violation of a financial disclosure law, a ProPublica report revealed Thursday.

Thomas has vacationed on Crow’s 162-foot superyacht, flown on the real estate developer’s private jet and spent time at the GOP donor’s private resort and other exclusive retreats, ProPublica reported, citing documents and dozens of interviews.

Thomas, the 74-year-old conservative associate justice who has served on the nation’s highest court since 1991, has not reported the trips on his financial disclosures as required by law, the nonprofit newsroom reported.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/06/clar...ps-report.html

[Rockstar]

Not necessarily all Trump’s own doing. Considering Alvin Bragg is just keeping a campaign promise that got him elected.

Alvin Bragg, the local district attorney in Manhattan who has led the effort to indict former President Donald Trump, is an elected official. He ran for his current office in 2021. In that campaign, he won a Democratic primary crowded with fellow Democrats who promised that, if elected, they would go after Trump. Now, having been elected, Bragg is going after Trump.

And so the boondoggle continues.