quash said:
Oldbear83 said:
quash said:
Oldbear83 said:
Waco1947 said:
No, it is about DT breaking the 'law' ... the made-up contrived version we came up with in order to 'get Trump'.
Corrected for accuracy.
New York Election Law 17-152. Can you tell me what portion was made up/contrived, and in what manner?
Aside from ignoring statute of limitations, claiming a violation of federal election law in state court, blowing up a single misdemeanor charge into 34 'felonies'?
Come on, we've been over this, you're not going to fool anyone not already lobotomized.
SOL will not avail him on appeal, nor will the misguided claim that this SHOULD have been a federal charge, it simply COULD have been.
As a former prosecutor I have seen multiple acts combined into one charged offense; I have also seen each act charged. The latter is risky because if it looks like a bunch of similar charges and you fail to prove one or more the jury will se it as a failure of the whole. NY took the risk and went 34 for 34. Dayam. Blanche should be embarrassed.
FWBear - a fellow lawyer - posted a nice analysis of the issues with this case, that you continue to seem to miss. I will repost if here for discussion.
Let's just assume there were false entries into records (and that is debatable). The aggravating predicate intent was to commit/conceal a crime under a particular NY Election Law involving a conspiracy to promote Trump's election by "unlawful means." We shouldn't even have to go any further without shaking our heads. But we will.
It became even more absurd as to Judge Merchan's instructions on "unlawful means":
"
Although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were."
Setting aside how this almost reads like an instruction to convict (due to Merchan being sloppy), the jury did not even have to agree on part of the offense. There's plenty of SCOTUS law (especially in recent years) that this is improper. Even if not technically improper, not court or officer of the court would pursue this approach in good faith. It's shameful, but it happens.
The several options identified for "unlawful means" are headscratchers:
(1) FECA [the whole idea that settling with an NDA over alleged consensual sex is a campaign violation],
(2) the circular bootstrapping of falsifying business records [some of which arguably were not even applicable business records], and
(3) filing a tax return containing a materially false matter.
All three are problematic, but the second ground for "unlawful means" is the worst in my view. Falsifying business records to commit/conceal the promotion of Trump's election by the unlawful means of falsifying business records. That's really weak and sounds like the kind of logic you'd encounter at the DMV after standing in line for an hour.
The reason charges like these have never been brought until this political hit job is because these are eye-rollers. The statutes were not designed for this, which is evident by all the round holes and square pegs in this case. I won't hold my breath to see how many other political candidates DA Bragg pursues on these theories (I don't think he mentioned any other targets besides Trump during his own political campaign).
They did this same sloppy leftist "by any means necessary" crap with Weinstein and the NYC COA reversed his conviction because of it. On top of all of the above, were there any unnecessary prejudicial witnesses in this case? I can think of one, maybe even two.