Trump Trial

[GURPS]

Alvin Bragg's Show Trial of Donald Trump Is an Attack on the Rule of Law​

As millions of Americans across the nation—and the political spectrum—suspect, this entire misadventure is nothing more than a charade. Desperate to do something, anything, to shift the focus from President Joe Biden's failures, Bragg has resorted to prosecuting Trump just months before the election. He knows he is unlikely to win a conviction, but this case isn't about justice; it's about distraction. That is how we get to where we are now. That is how we have a criminal show trial of a former—and likely future—president of the United States, right at the opening of the general-election season.

Sometimes things are exactly as they appear, and in those cases, we have a responsibility to state the obvious. So let us acknowledge what is happening here: this prosecution is an act of lawfare, the deliberate perversion of the law and its processes to target, isolate, and persecute a specific individual—and not at all coincidentally, disenfranchise the tens of millions of Americans who could make him president again.

One might argue that Bragg is exceedingly scrupulous in his pursuit of justice. But one need only look at how he administers "justice" in nearly every other sphere of his jurisdiction to see his brazen partisanship. Although the Manhattan district attorney infamously declared that his office will not prosecute certain crimes, his two-tiered notion of justice suggests that Trump will have the book thrown at him. One might also argue that Bragg's timing is pure coincidence and unrelated to the national election cycle. But the district attorney has had the evidence for nearly eight years, and only now decided to prosecute. A false urgency and a phony conscientiousness betray the truth of the thing.

 

[GURPS]

The Hill ran an encouraging, hilariously-written Jonathan Turley op-ed on Friday, headlined “On Alvin Bragg and the art of not taking the law too seriously.” Of course I loved it, since Turley agrees with us. The trial is a joke about a farce.





Following last week’s testimony, Turley explained, Donald Trump’s trial is increasingly looking like a mad, Rube Goldberg-style prosecution machine being run by a pack of midwit lawyers who don’t take the law too seriously.

(By the way, I can’t tell you how delighted I am to see the conservative media begin shifting from constant outrage to mockery. To the extent C&C has helped effectuate the transition at all, I am grateful.)

Smart people like Jonathan Turley are starting to realize how threadbare is portly Alvin Bragg’s dumb criminal case. Here’s how Constitutional scholar Turley described the legal issues, if you can call them that:

The base charge is a simple misdemeanor under a New York law against falsifying business records. Trump paid Cohen hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and costs, including $130,000 for a nondisclosure agreement with Daniels.​

Bragg is vague as to what should have been noted on the ledgers for the payments. It is not even clear if Trump knew of this expense’s designation as a legal cost. However, it really did not matter, because the misdemeanor has been as dead as Dillinger for years.​

The dead misdemeanor was shocked back into life by claiming that it was committed to conceal another crime. Under New York’s penal law, section 175.10, it can be a felony if the “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”​

Turley then caught a trick I’d missed. Showing a spark of neuronic life, mid-trial last week, in mid-case, or ‘mid-stream,’ Bragg ditched his original campaign finance reporting crime for a different weird, unused New York election law — surprise! — this one prohibiting an “unlawful conspiracy to promote an election”:

In the trial, Bragg added a type of frying pan flip to his Rube Goldberg contraption by arguing that Trump may have been trying to hide his violation of another dead misdemeanor under yet another New York election law prohibiting “conspir[ing] to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.”​

In other words, Trump was conspiring to try to win his own election. Even though the notations were made after he had already won the election. Even though Trump was running for a federal, not a state office.​

So Bragg would use one dead misdemeanor to trigger a second dead misdemeanor to create a felony on the simple notations used to describe payments for a completely legal nondisclosure agreement.​

The op-ed continued by then analyzing last week’s testimonial evidence (mostly from David Pecker), and what it all added up to — if anything — was just as disjointed and unfathomable as were the criminal charges. Read the whole thing.

Overall the week is off to a promising start.

☕️ THE RUBE GOLDBERG LAW FIRM ☙ Monday, April 29, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Electrifying meeting between Trump and DeSantis leaves us guessing; protective jab wall starts crumbling after AstraZeneca admission; extreme midwest weather; holes appearing in Trump trial; more.

www.coffeeandcovid.com

 

[SamSpade]

I'm a programmer, and from time to time, it falls on me to manage and debug OTHER people's code.

It happens rather often I will come across some lesser used software feature - in someone else's code - being used in a way that doesn't make a lot of sense - because the coder who wrote it was only guessing at what it does, so they added features and conditions that work against one another and don't work. They did that, because they don't really know what it does and probably got an idea from someone, somewhere and just figured they'd throw it out there and see if it would work.

Almost all the time, software code doesn't work that way - it does what you tell it to.

This is how Bragg's case seems to me - he's cobbled together a Frankenstein's monster of legal efforts to try and concoct a crime which isn't there. It's never been used this way before, for good reason. It doesn't work that way, and a good lawyer would be able to see that.

 

[jrt_ms1995]

I'm a programmer, and from time to time, it falls on me to manage and debug OTHER people's code.

It happens rather often I will come across some lesser used software feature - in someone else's code - being used in a way that doesn't make a lot of sense - because the coder who wrote it was only guessing at what it does, so they added features and conditions that work against one another and don't work. They did that, because they don't really know what it does and probably got an idea from someone, somewhere and just figured they'd throw it out there and see if it would work.

What you doin' looking at my code, Sam?!

 

[Hijinx]

I'm a programmer, and from time to time, it falls on me to manage and debug OTHER people's code.

It happens rather often I will come across some lesser used software feature - in someone else's code - being used in a way that doesn't make a lot of sense - because the coder who wrote it was only guessing at what it does, so they added features and conditions that work against one another and don't work. They did that, because they don't really know what it does and probably got an idea from someone, somewhere and just figured they'd throw it out there and see if it would work.

Almost all the time, software code doesn't work that way - it does what you tell it to.

This is how Bragg's case seems to me - he's cobbled together a Frankenstein's monster of legal efforts to try and concoct a crime which isn't there. It's never been used this way before, for good reason. It doesn't work that way, and a good lawyer would be able to see that.

It appears that a good Judge would be able to see it and toss the whole thing out.
Instead this clown judge is giving the appearance of a vindictive ass hole who has a personal dislike for Donald Trump.

 

[SamSpade]

It appears that a good Judge would be able to see it and toss the whole thing out.
Instead this clown judge is giving the appearance of a vindictive ass hole who has a personal dislike for Donald Trump.

On another thread I posted a link where it can be amply shown - that smart people can still be so blinded by their bias, that they justify their actions, because - they're smart. They spend their time convincing themselves they're right, and they do such a good job, they're supporting the unsupportable.

Happens almost every time I scold my kids - they always have a reason why they weren't wrong. It takes a good deal of time to get them to see it.

 

[GURPS]

that smart people can still be so blinded by their bias, that they justify their actions, because - they're smart.

I'm educated, I know better than you, ya stupid rube, living in a fly over state ......

 

[Kyle]

I'm educated, I know better than you, ya stupid rube, living in a fly over state ......

You channeling Hemi there?

 

[GURPS]

You channeling Hemi there?

lol, not at all .. just recounting leftist elitist mentality

 

[SamSpade]

I'm educated, I know better than you, ya stupid rube, living in a fly over state ......

And everyone sees that, including some of the schmucks SAYING that - but it's also true that really "smart" people convince themselves of complete, utter, biased bullsht because they spend so much time either persuading themselves or deeply investigating all the data that supports their opinion.

So - you CAN be stupid, and believe stupid things - but you can also be REALLY SMART and still believe stupid things.

 

[GURPS]

And everyone sees that, including some of the schmucks SAYING that - but it's also true that really "smart" people convince themselves of complete, utter, biased bullsht because they spend so much time either persuading themselves or deeply investigating all the data that supports their opinion.

 

[GURPS]

The trial must not be polling well. The New York Times ran a desperate, narrative bending guest essay yesterday, headlined “I Was an Attorney at the D.A.’s Office. This Is What the Trump Case Is Really About.” It was penned by Rebecca Roiphe, who before Alvin Bragg’s time a former assistant DA in the Manhattan office. Now she’s a Trump-deranged law professor at New York University who often gives media salty quotes about Trump posing the greatest danger to the Nation’s democracy.



Rebecca is worried about the trial, and put the bad news up front. Alvin Bragg’s case against President Trump is turning out to be totally incomprehensible, and people are struggling to comprehend exactly what Trump is supposed to have done wrong:

Now that the lawyers are laying out their respective theories of the case in the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump in New York, it would be understandable if people’s heads are spinning. It’s not surprising that the lawyers are trying to make this about something sexier. This is a narrative device to make the jurors side with them, but it has also created confusion.​

No kidding. Like me, and like other experts recently quoted in C&C, even Trump-deranged Rebecca admits this case is not about election interference or even about salacious “hush money” payments. Those things are distractions. It’s just about the stupid check stubs:

This case is not really about election interference, nor is it a politically motivated attempt to criminalize a benign personal deal. Boring as it may sound, it is a case about business integrity. Mr. Trump is accused of creating 11 false invoices, 12 false ledger entries and 11 false checks and check stubs, with the intent to violate federal election laws, state election laws or state tax laws.​

Rebecca was even generous enough to admit that this clinically-insane prosecution doesn’t depend on the truth or falsehood of any of the bad things Trump’s been accused of, which as Rebecca sees it, poses another problem:

For the prosecution, the elements of the crime in this case do not require a finding that Mr. Trump interfered with the 2016 election. Nor does it matter whether he had sex with Ms. Daniels. By over-emphasizing the crime he was intending to conceal rather than the false business records, the prosecution also risks confusing the jury into thinking about whether the lies affected the election or to wonder why Mr. Trump wasn’t charged with this alleged election crime.​

After carefully considering these pro’s and con’s and weighing the risks, Rebecca posed the question that we are all asking ourselves: “Is it really worth charging a former president for this?”

By way of an answer, all Rebecca could come up with was a single paragraph leaning into the tired old “no man is above the law” trope that we’ve repeatedly demolished. Ask Hunter Biden about no man being above the law. What’s a little sex trafficking between friends, anyway?

Rebecca laughably suggested that since any regular small businessman would be charged and tried for writing “legal expenses” on his check stubs too, then it’s super fair to also charge a President. After all, the liberal law professor mused, it proves the system is fair.

I hate to give Rebecca more bad news, but small business people mischaracterize expenses all the time. It’s practically a national pastime. And in my experience as a commercial litigator, business people usually do mischaracterize expenses to avoid paying some kind of tax, like sales tax, payroll tax, or income tax. And avoiding paying tax is clearly an “other crime” that would support a felony conviction for check stub fraud if Alvin Bragg were equally applying the law.

And if I am recalling correctly — and I think I am — Hillary’s campaign also mischaracterized the Steele “Russia Russia Russia” dossier as legal expenses. Yet this obvious example of prosecutorial double standards somehow escaped Rebecca’s keen legal instincts.

If charging the President with crimes proves the system is fair, without even really trying that hard I can think of a lot of things with which to charge Joe Biden. Let’s go.

☕️ GROWING AND SHRINKING ☙ Tuesday, April 30, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Trump stock ‘unexpectedly’ jumps; Trump trial miracle is deranged star witness; NYT admits trial is about nothing; shrinking Ukraine aid narrative; China pushing back on Biden; WHO treaty shrinkage.

www.coffeeandcovid.com

 

[Hijinx]

Some of the most stupid people I know have a college education.
It may be an indicator of one kind of intelligence while it may also be an indicator of having that intelligence forced in the wrong direction by really smart people who do the forcing. One indicator of intelligence should be the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff, to tell the truth from a lie, and so many allegedly intelligent people do not have that ability.


As proven at Columbia University and at the American voting booth.

 

[my-thyme]

Just announced there will be no court May 17, the day of Trump's son's graduation. No reason given.

 

[Sneakers]

Just announced there will be no court May 17, the day of Trump's son's graduation. No reason given.

Someone finally figured out that would set Trump in a favorable light rather than 'punish' him.

 

[WingsOfGold]

It appears that a good Judge would be able to see it and toss the whole thing out.
Instead this clown judge is giving the appearance of a vindictive ass hole who has a personal dislike for Donald Trump.

Again the same pos that his daughter is lining pockets with YET the pos won't recuse himself.

 

[SamSpade]

Again the same pos that his daughter is lining pockets with YET the pos won't recuse himself.

BUT -

See, years ago, everyone KNEW Al Capone was a ruthless killer and they just couldn't get him on anything. Eventually he ended up doing a decade in prison for dederal tax evasion, but they had to jump through a lot of legal wrangling to make the charges stick.

Nobody minded the fact that logically, legally - it might have been a hard case to make - but - it was AL CAPONE and *everyone knew* he was an evil bastard. So it didn't matter how biased jurors were, or who sat on the bench - they were going to convict him of something.

---------------------------------------------------

Such is the rationale among these folks - they're convinced without even having evidence that Trump's a crook and needs to go to jail, so they set about fishing for a crime. Make no mistake, Bragg and others made it clear, they were going to take him down. Period. Give them the man, they will FIND a crime. To them - he's Capone, he's Hitler, and due process or equal protection under the law, just throw it out.

 

[Hijinx]

BUT -

See, years ago, everyone KNEW Al Capone was a ruthless killer and they just couldn't get him on anything. Eventually he ended up doing a decade in prison for dederal tax evasion, but they had to jump through a lot of legal wrangling to make the charges stick.

Nobody minded the fact that logically, legally - it might have been a hard case to make - but - it was AL CAPONE and *everyone knew* he was an evil bastard. So it didn't matter how biased jurors were, or who sat on the bench - they were going to convict him of something.

---------------------------------------------------

Such is the rationale among these folks - they're convinced without even having evidence that Trump's a crook and needs to go to jail, so they set about fishing for a crime. Make no mistake, Bragg and others made it clear, they were going to take him down. Period. Give them the man, they will FIND a crime. To them - he's Capone, he's Hitler, and due process or equal protection under the law, just throw it out.

It's funny how they can see the Capone in Trump while being blind to the treason and Rosenberg in Biden.

 

[GURPS]

NY vs. Trump: Cross examination of DA Bragg's first witness unravels important truths​

Defense attorney Emil Bove vigorously cross-examined the prosecution’s first witness, David Pecker, the ex-publisher of the National Enquirer. Prosecutors sat uncomfortably, as important truths met sunlight.

Under questioning, Pecker confessed that his tabloid routinely suppressed negative stories and promoted positive ones involving candidates for political office because it was financially profitable. The witness agreed that other, more mainstream news organizations did the exact same thing. Paying for stories and sometimes killing them was commonplace at the Enquirer, he admitted, especially when celebrities were involved. It was not unique to Trump.

This was something that Bragg and his team of prosecutors spent the better part of a week concealing from the jury on direct examination. The irony —and hypocrisy— is obvious. Bragg accuses Trump of suppressing information to win an election. But the D.A. suppressed vital testimony to win his case against Trump.

 

[Hijinx]

A paper that always prints salacious article about Trump.
That's not only the Enquirer, but all of the media.