News Flash: A Trump Conviction Doesn’t Hang on Michael Cohen, but it hangs on Did the former president “cause” the creation of false business records

[LAUGHatLEFTISTS]

Ayn Rand is on line #3

Saul Alynsky is on line #1.

 

[Rambunctious]

You actually have little faith in Americans and the systems that hold America together. Why not renounce citizenship and move to Russia?

I'm a realist and I call them like I see them... NYC is anti Trump and so pulling a jury from there is a problem... this is why a little thing like change of venue exists which of course this compromised judge denied Trump....
But you must not have comprehended my post because I followed up by saying I still think they will find Trump not guilty...

 

[westwall]

The charge isn't influencing an election. No one, except trolls like you are saying influencing an election is illegal.

straw man alert!

Yes, you have an army of strawmen.

 

[Seymour Flops]

Somebody has to be a witness against Trump.

You can have boxes of documents, but if no one can say they witnessed Trump creating them, or "causing" them, so what? If no one can provide evidence that any of them were falsified, so what?

Trump has plenty of honest people who work for him, the idea that he "surrounds himself" with liars and criminals is absurd. Even if he did, not everyone who works for him is a convicted and unrepentant perjuror, or a porn whore, or a publisher of a magazine known to rely on made up, and paid for stories. If he were surrounded only by liars and criminals, why not get some of the liars and criminals who haven't been caught yet to testify?

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

The Covid scare is over simp. Nobody cares about your vax card anymore.

Until the next outbreak of whatever.

 

[Zincwarrior]

Trump too scared to testify! Defense not calling him.

 

[BackAgain]

Trump too scared to testify! Defense not calling him.

Silly ^ post.

Not a reason in the world for him to take the stand.

The nonsensical liberal refrain that it’s because he’s “scared” is also absolutely without substance.

Laughable libs.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Somebody has to be a witness against Trump.

The records.

 

[Zincwarrior]

Silly ^ post.

Not a reason in the world for him to take the stand.

The nonsensical liberal refrain that it’s because he’s “scared” is also absolutely without substance.

Laughable libs.

Coward! As Trump said, only mob guys pleas the Fifth! Coward!

 

[BackAgain]

Coward! As Trump said, only mob guys pleas the Fifth! Coward!

Still silly.

 

[Seymour Flops]

The records.

"The records" cannot be the witness. They also cannot come in without a witness to lat the foundation for them.

 

[westwall]

The records.

Mean nothing you fucking ignoramus.

 

[HikerGuy83]

Opinion
Guest Essay
Jeffrey Toobin

"A Trump Conviction Doesn’t Hang on Michael Cohen"

Opinion | A Trump Conviction Doesn’t Hang on Michael Cohen

As provocative as the testimony has been, this case may turn on something a great deal more mundane.

www.nytimes.com

Toobin asks "Did the former president “cause” the creation of false business records?"

Trump supporters have been attacking Trump's former long time, personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, just as they have attacked Stormy Daniels and other prosecution witnesses -- even attacking the witnesses who are not hostile to Trump, who even showed a like or respect for the man. But as I've said before -- the case against Trump doesn't rise or fall on the testimony of Cohen alone ("We don’t have to rely on just Cohen’s word. We can believe Cohen because of the receipts, the tapes and the hard evidence.”)

Trump supporters have been attacking people for discussing the historical trial happening in real time. Attacking people for discussing a criminal trial without precedent in the history of the United States, as somehow being an unhealthy obsession with Trump. As if being focused on a former president being tried in criminal court should somehow not be upper most in discussions around the proverbial water coolers. How desperate, pathetic, and sad that is I'll leave up to others to decide.

I like what Toobin has laid out in his article. While I do not claim him as being the last word on this, his insights and opinions are well informed and well argued.




If the jury is told the in instructions what the case is really about? There will be no not guilty verdict, no hung jury. Only a well reasoned guilty verdict.


quotes from reporters inside the courthouse today:

Emil Bove, a defense lawyer, is suggesting that the prosecutors, in their proposed jury instructions, has shifted their theory of the case. It sounds like he’s talking about the state election law that underlies the felony business records charges against Trump. Justice Merchan doesn’t seem to agree, but in any case, he says, the prosecution’s proposal for jury instructions holds no weight at the moment. It is only a proposal.

“Just relax,” Merchan tells the defense lawyer, as he continues to argue. Nothing, he signals, has been determined yet.

Bove continues to argue. He can tell that the judge is frustrated, but it’s clear that Bove is, too. If he believes that the prosecution changed its theory of the case in these final weeks, it would help to explain why he’s irate. Merchan seems to understand that, as Bove continues to push for more testimony from their proposed expert witness on election law.

Trump folds his arms over his chest as Bove finishes his argument. He then starts whispering to his lawyer as Matthew Colangelo, a prosecutor, begins to address the court.

Matthew Colangelo, a prosecutor, stands up and fights back. He says that “there’s nothing new at all” about the theory to which the defense is objecting. In short: the charges against Trump are felonies because prosecutors have argued that he falsified business records to conceal another crime. They have signaled that other crime was seeking to promote his own election "by unlawful means," in violation of state election law. That introduces a third potential crime.

So, if you’re keeping score, that’s three potential crimes, all wrapped into each of the 34 felony charges of falsifying business records.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/20/nyregion/trump-trial-hush-money

Interesting day.

Let the goal post moving begin.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

"The records" cannot be the witness. They also cannot come in without a witness to lat the foundation for them.

Evidence.


Like tax records that convicted Al Capone.

wake up, loser

 

[Seymour Flops]

Evidence.


Like tax records that convicted Al Capone.

wake up, loser

With many witnesses that Capone actually had income that he had not paid taxes on. Feel free to read up on it, to avoid embarrassing yourself, again:





A series of prosecution witnesses presented evidence of Capone's lavish lifestyle. Parker Henderson testified that he sold Capone his Palm Island, Florida estate, with the title placed in his wife's name. "I asked Al if he was interested in buying any property and he said he was," Henderson told jurors. "So we made an appointment with him and carried him out and showed him several places. This place on Palm Island he seemed to like very much. Later he told me he had decided to take it. He gave me all money to put up the binder." Morrissey Smith, a clerk at Chicago's Metropole Hotel told jurors that Capone purchased the hotel's most expensive suites and hosted expensive parties. Asked in what denominations Capone would pay his bills, Smith replied, "Oh, hundred dollar bills, sometimes five hundred dollar bills." Smith's comment prompted gasps from many of the courtroom's Depression-impoverished spectators. Florida dock-builder H. F. Ryder testified that he saw enough money in Capone's Palm Island estate cupboard "to choke an ox."

The final key witness for the prosecution was Fred Reis, cashier of the Cicero gambling house in 1927. Reis placed the hall's profits for 1927 at "around $150,000." Reis testified that he saw Capone when he was taking bets in the hall. "Capone came by and said, 'Hello, Reis.' I said, 'Hello, Al.'” Jacob Grossman asked Reis about 43 cashier's checks, representing the hall's profits, that were purchased from a Cicero bank. Reis testified that he had bought the checks (made out to "J.C. Dunbar," an alias used by Reis) and turned them over to Bobby Barton. Underneath the signature of "J.C. Dunbar" on one of the checks was the signature of Al Capone.

 

[BackAgain]

The persecution’s case absolutely depends on the perjurer, Cohen, whom the persecutor was ethically deficient enough to call. Disgraceful.

***Mod edit: Deleted off topic discussion.

 

[Seymour Flops]

As I said in a thread I made, even before Cohen's embezzlement was revealed, they've lost CNN.



Where are these people still pretending that the trial is a valid prosecution getting their talking points? Who in the media still supports the case? Rachel Maddow, maybe?

 

[Foxfyre]

Trump too scared to testify! Defense not calling him.

That's all you have? Leftist are even more lame in theory and critical thinking than I thought.

 

[Seymour Flops]

Most criminal trials "what's the crime" never needs to be asked. A bank is robbed, a man is killed, a woman is raped, a check is forged, or whatever. The Question for the jury is whether there is enough evidence that this particular defendant committed the crime.

For this trial, the defendant was chosen and now the prosecution is trying to fit his actions into a criminal statute. The legal gymnastics required are impressive, but the prosecution can't quite execute that handstand pirouette with 360 turn he needs to make the case.

 

[Zincwarrior]

That's all you have? Leftist are even more lame in theory and critical thinking than I thought.

He is a pussy.