US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3907

This appears to be about as execrable an exercise of prosecutorial discretion as one can fathom.
And they say Trump is the norm-breaker.

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The New York Times, like other media-Democrat-complex organs that have excellent sources in Bragg’s office, reports that the Trump indictment centers on the payment of hush money to a porn star — specifically, the manner in which the payment was accounted for, which Bragg alleges constituted a falsification of business records.

Even if that were all Bragg had done, it would be a disgrace — not because records falsification is not a crime (it is), but because Bragg would not have brought it against any defendant not named Donald Trump.

At issue are bookkeeping shenanigans that Bragg would ordinarily not give the time of day. In a nutshell, Trump booked the reimbursement of a loan as if it were a payment of legal fees. Trump’s then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, laid out $130,000 on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, to pay Stormy Daniels — the porn star, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — to keep quiet about an affair she says she had with Trump 17 years ago. On the books of the Trump organization, the reimbursement was made to look like ongoing legal fees paid in monthly installments in 2017. So trifling is this that it is not clear New York State suffered any financial harm — we’re talking merely about how an expense was described in the accounting ledgers, not about tax evasion.

But it gets worse. Falsification of financial records is just a misdemeanor in New York, which is why it’s virtually never charged. It has only a two-year statute of limitations, meaning that this one is time-barred. To inflate the misdemeanor into a felony, with a five-year statute of limitations that might — might barely — make the indictment timely, Bragg would have to show that Trump falsified his records in order to conceal his commission of another crime. That is, there would have to be some other crime, Trump would have to have known that, and he would have to have acted with the intent to conceal that crime.

Again, if the reporting is accurate — and we won’t know this for sure until the indictment is unsealed — Bragg is arguing that the crime Trump concealed was a failure to disclose an in-kind campaign contribution under the campaign-finance laws.

It would be hard to quantify how outrageous that allegation would be. Campaign-finance violations are federal. When the New York penal law refers to concealing “another crime,” it is plainly talking about another New York state crime. The Manhattan district attorney has no jurisdiction to enforce federal campaign-finance statutes. Moreover, the Department of Justice and the Federal Election Commission — the federal agencies that do have jurisdiction in this area — looked at the Stormy Daniels hush-money arrangement and opted not to proceed against Trump.

That is because, as a matter of law, it is highly unlikely that the payment — for which Cohen and Trump used their own personal funds, not campaign funds — was an in-kind campaign contribution. Moreover, campaign finance is an abstruse area of the law, and even enforcers disagree about what constitutes an in-kind contribution. If those expert in the law disagree, there is no way that Trump could have known it was a crime — as I just said, it probably wasn’t. But for Bragg to prove his felony charge, Trump would not only have to have known it; he would’ve consciously had to have been trying to hide his commission of that crime by falsifying his records.

There is no reason to believe Trump was intentionally trying to conceal a campaign-finance crime. There is, however, immense reason to believe that his actual motive was to avoid humiliation if his wife and family learned that he’d paid for a porn star’s silence about a fling. Falsifying records to avoid personal embarrassment is no doubt disreputable politically and morally; but legally, it is not the concealment of a crime.

And there’s still more. Even if Bragg were right that the payment was an in-kind contribution, it happened so late in the campaign — a few days before the election — that Trump would not have been required to disclose it until after the election. That is, the hush-money payment cannot conceivably have made a difference in the outcome of the election — particularly in Manhattan, Bragg’s limited area of jurisdiction, where Hillary Clinton beat Trump by over half a million votes.

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No one, including a former president and current presidential candidate, is above the law. But no one is below the law either. If a former president is going to be prosecuted, it should only be based on a criminal offense that passes the eye test: a very serious crime that any other American would be indicted for, and that is based on convincing evidence. Maybe a crime arising out of the Capitol riot, the attempted coup relating to the 2020 election, or the irresponsible retention of government intelligence at Mar-a-Lago (and the obstruction of the resulting grand-jury investigation) rise to that level. The Stormy Daniels caper does not.

On April 03 2023 21:51 King_Charles_III wrote:
Yeah the whole push to get trump put in jail is understandable but it's important to be level headed about it which I'm sorry to say one cannot expect from the democrats. The dems don't genuinely think that the stormy case is worthy of criminal charges, and we know that because they didn't bat an eye when the other 2016 presidential campaign got a civil fine only for the same scheme. The NYC based Clinton campaign concealed their funding of the Steele dossier, and didn't report it as campaign spending, by describing it in internal records as legal fees. In other words they covered up campaign spending by disguising it as legal fees. They got a civil fine for it, and it was a little blip in the news because no one genuinely thinks it's worthy of criminal charges.

Then there's the fact that with the indictment, the Manhattan DA is essentially trying to enforce federal law. Their theory involves upgrading the charge because a federal not state law was violated - even though states don't have the power to enforce federal law. Go to the DA's website and it says he enforces state law; go to the DOJ's website and it says they enforce federal law.

So yes, prosecute trump for the serious stuff but committed members of the democratic party cannot be trusted for a second to be in charge of this. They can't see their own overreach.

On April 04 2023 00:48 Mohdoo wrote:


Why would it not be worthy of charges? If he broke the law, no matter what, he should be charged 100% as much as the law dictates. Trump being a politician means it is extra extra extra important that the law is applied exactly as written to him.

I don't know whether or not he broke the law, since I don't know enough about these laws to say for sure. But I think if he DID, whatever the law says should happen when someone breaks whatever law he broke (if he did), is what should happen to him

Are you saying you don't think that's what should happen?

In a memo to staff, he said offenses like marijuana misdemeanors, prostitution, and fare evasion will no longer be prosecuted.

Bragg thinks longer sentences do not deter crime and make society safer.

Bragg is also advising lesser charges for some low-level drug offenders and for some burglaries, and in low-level store robberies, lesser charges if a suspect "displays a dangerous instrument but does not create a genuine risk of physical harm."

On April 04 2023 07:30 BlackJack wrote:


The problem is when you start electing progressive DAs that want to single-handedly implement their own idea of criminal justice reform and stop prosecuting certain crimes then you no longer get to say that 100% of the crimes should be enforced 100% of the time no matter who is involved.

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/manhattan-da-alvin-bragg-low-level-offenses/

3 days after taking office



So it does seem a little disingenuous that we suddenly have all these tough-on-crime people on the left that suddenly want everyone prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

On April 04 2023 07:35 Gorsameth wrote:
Yes, because wanting less punishment for the desperate who turn to crime out of an attempt to stay alive in the case of low level robberies or lesser drug offenses, or just smoking pot which is already legal in a bunch of places is the same as wanting to prosecute rich people, no matter their political affiliation, for breaking the law for their own self interest, not out of necessity but simply because they believe the law doesn't apply to them.

I expect such nuance to be lost on you.

America would be doing a lot better if it stopped waging a war on poor people.