The Worst Gets Some Convictions

 

I get it about the reading disability, but he should be able to ask one of his lawyers www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

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— Yastreblyansky (@yastreblyansky.bsky.social) May 30, 2024 at 1:53 PM

You'd think he'd have figured some of it out by now: It's illegal to falsify business records in New York State. Just three or four months ago Trump was found liable for $355 million worth of falsified business records, has he forgotten about that? That was a civil case (for Trump; it was a criminal case for his company and its CFO Allen Weisselberg), and the thing that made it important was the sheer magnitude of the crime, but it's basically falsifying business records, the financial statements Trump put out for the bankers and insurance brokers who needed to know how much risk he posed:

falsifying business records, and conspiring to falsify business records, in order to issue a false financial statement and commit insurance fraud. (In some cases, notably that of his primary lender Deutsche Bank, the corporate culture was so corrupt that they didn't care how much of the company's money they were throwing away, but that doesn't make it OK, as they try to tell you by calling it a victimless crime.)

Today's verdict was in a criminal case, and involved a tiny amount of money in comparison (though it would be an awful lot of money to me, and pretty much everybody I know), but it too was all about falsifying business records, at bottom, the records of Trump's payments to his New York fixer Michael Cohen, disguising them as a regular attorney retainer—

—Cohen's invoices, the Trump organization's vouchers, and Trump's canceled checks. It's charged as a criminal case because it was meant to conceal another crime, or a kind of nest of crimes, Trump's illegal reimbursement of Cohen's illegal campaign contribution, directed at silencing the story of Stormy Daniels, which was not in itself a crime, but was itself covered up by criminal acts, in those layers of laundering from Cohen's imaginary LLC through which he transmitted the payment to Stormy to the checks with which Trump paid him back. All these were part of an effort to "promote or prevent the election of a person [Trump] to a public office [the presidency]" as laid down in N.Y. Elec. Law § 17-152 "by unlawful means [the falsified records]" which may, for all we know, have been the decisive factor in Trump's 2016 victory, supposing that letting the Stormy story out would have reinforced the Access Hollywood scandal 

That's what makes it a felony under New York State law. I hope everybody's getting this, other than Speaker Mikey Johnson, of course, who can simply deny that the evidence exists

"Today is a shameful day in American history. Democrats cheered as they convicted the leader of the opposing party on ridiculous charges, predicated on the testimony of a disbarred, convicted felon. This was a purely political exercise, not a legal one," he said in a statement.

in a prosecution calling 20 witnesses (including some crucial ones Trump doesn't seem to think of challenging, David Pecker and Hope Hicks) and I don't know how many documents including this one

Trump himself may for once have come up with a smarter approach, as Haberman and Bromwich suggested in the Times a couple of days ago, presenting himself as the outlaw in the case—the Waylon Jennings candidate, or less charitably its Pretty Boy Floyd:

Over the past week, Donald J. Trump rallied alongside two rap artists accused of conspiracy to commit murder. He promised to commute the sentence of a notorious internet drug dealer. And he appeared backstage with another rap artist who has pleaded guilty to assault for punching a female fan.

As Mr. Trump awaits the conclusion of his Manhattan trial — closing arguments are set for Tuesday and a verdict could arrive as soon as this week — he used a weeklong break from court to align himself with defendants and convicted criminals charged by the same system with which he is at war.

The party of law and order of the last 60-odd years is now going to be the party of Dread Pirate Donald. I'm hopeful that may not work for him across the board.