|
« TAP TO LOG IN
|
Play online chess!
Trump Convicted
« Back to club forum| From | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
|
 Trump ConvictedIt’s been four-plus weeks of rolling in the muck in a Manhattan courthouse, with sometimes heated testimony and cross-examination featuring a tabloid publisher, a porn star and a former fixer for Donald Trump. And nobody involved is coming out looking good. But that’s not what People v. Trump is ultimately about. The first-ever criminal prosecution of a U.S. president, at least according to the team of prosecutors working under Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, is about alleged “election interference” during the 2016 campaign committed at the behest of the former and potentially future president. Is Bragg going to convince a jury? As we approach closing arguments on Tuesday, here’s what we can say: It appears that the odds of Trump being convicted are fairly good — but not overwhelming. Perhaps slightly more likely than not. The likelihood of an acquittal, which would require all 12 jurors to unanimously conclude that Trump is not guilty, appears slim at best. Yet there is a very real chance that one or more jurors will refuse to convict — most likely because they are unwilling to fully credit the testimony of Michael Cohen — and that the jury will hang, resulting in a mistrial and a de facto victory for Trump. Several major factual issues appear to be largely (if not entirely) incontestable at this point given the way that the evidence came in over the course of the trial. Much of it is not good for Trump. First, Trump had an extramarital sexual encounter with Stormy Daniels, despite his yearslong claims to the contrary both before and during the trial. Second, Trump worked with and through David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, to “catch and kill” damaging stories about him to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, and Trump wanted him to do the same with Daniels’ story once she began shopping it around in the final weeks of the campaign. Third, after Pecker declined to kill the Daniels story, Cohen paid Daniels himself and was later reimbursed for the cost by Trump. And fourth, the Trump Organization’s business records inaccurately described the reimbursement to Cohen as work for legal services. There is, however, a potentially crucial ingredient missing from this list. In order to convict Trump on the felony charges brought by prosecutors, it is not enough for them to establish that Trump paid Daniels off to influence the election or even that he falsified his company’s business records. (That would only be a misdemeanor offense under New York law.) In order to establish Trump’s guilt on the felony charges that have been brought, prosecutors have to persuade all 12 of the jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump falsified those records with the intent to conceal “another crime,” such as breaking election laws. In the end, the case could rise or fall on that ostensibly narrow — but essential and still hotly contested — factual question. Here are the potential worlds where Trump gets a guilty verdict — and where he doesn’t. Broadly speaking, the D.A.’s office has provided two logical paths for jurors to use to convict Trump — one that goes through Cohen and one that goes around him. The path through Cohen relies on his testimony about purported conversations that he had with Trump about the relevant events in 2016 and 2017. If you believe Cohen, his testimony broadly established Trump’s involvement in and knowledge of the underlying effort to purchase Daniels’ story in order to ensure that it did not hurt Trump’s 2016 election chances; prosecutors have characterized that scheme as a conspiracy to influence the election using an illegal campaign contribution. Cohen’s testimony also sought to establish the process for Trump reimbursing Cohen for the payment to Daniels using intentionally falsified business records. Jurors do not have to believe Cohen entirely on every minute detail, but they could adopt the overall thrust of his account. In Cohen’s telling, Trump was fully in the loop and understood exactly why everything in this intricate scheme was happening, up to and including the purpose of falsifying the company’s records concerning the reimbursement to Cohen — i.e., that falsifying the records was intended to conceal the commission of “another crime” of some sort. The second path to a conviction relies on circumstantial evidence, inference and common sense — all of which, as a legal matter, are perfectly appropriate grounds upon which jurors can render a verdict. There is plenty of reason, even apart from the direct evidence offered by Cohen of Trump’s participation in approving the deal with Daniels and signing off on the false records regarding the reimbursement, to believe that Trump was in on everything and fully aware of the legal risks and implications of what he had done. After all, Trump was the only full-time participant in all of the key events. He was the person who had sex with Daniels. He was the candidate running for president whose political interests were at risk if Daniels’ account became public. He was a principal (represented by Cohen) in the contract negotiations to acquire Daniels’ story. He was the person who ultimately gave the money for Daniels to stay quiet. And he was the head of the business whose records were falsified in the course of repaying Cohen. If you believe all of this, it is not a terribly difficult leap to conclude that Trump knew all of the key facts — including why the reimbursements were disguised — at every step of the way. Trump, of course, could have also taken the witness stand to dispute all of these claims, but he chose not to. To be clear, testifying would have been a mistake of historic proportions because Trump is a terrible witness and would have faced a grueling cross-examination, but jurors sometimes want to hear the defense present a coherent alternative account from the one offered by prosecutors, and without Trump taking the stand, that was harder to discern. [Plus, Trump routinely inadvertently implicates himself in criminal activity—if he did not accidentally confess to this crime he would have likely revealed some even worse offense, in addition to committing perjury.] These two paths — one relying largely on Cohen’s testimony, and one relying largely on circumstantial evidence of Trump’s intent to conceal the commission of a crime when he reimbursed Cohen — aren’t mutually exclusive. For prosecutors to prevail, the jurors don’t have to agree on their reasoning, either, as long as they agree to convict. There’s no way to predict what the jury thinks about all of this — to say nothing of how they will actually come out — but prosecutors are clearly within striking distance of convicting Trump. And, if we are being honest, it probably helps matters that they are in Manhattan; Trump is widely reviled there at this point and, as a general matter, people are not inclined to bend over backward to give him the benefit of the doubt. A conviction, however, is not a foregone conclusion. Heading into closing arguments, Trump’s lawyers have plenty of material to work with and a very solid shot at a hung jury. As a practical matter, their goal is to convince at least one juror that there is reasonable doubt on one or more elements of the charges for falsifying his company’s records. The most obvious path to doing so is — and has always been — to focus on Cohen’s credibility issues. After all, according to a poll conducted by Ipsos and POLITICO Magazine in the run-up to the trial, roughly half of the country already believes that Cohen is dishonest. [Though Cohen has nothing to gain in lying now, whereas he was formerly guilty of lying FOR Trump. Cohen risks new perjury charges if found to be lying to retaliate against the criminal mastermind.] In the end, Trump’s best defense may be a simple one: Cohen did the deeds, and he’s lying about the extent of Trump’s involvement. For starters, Cohen was the lawyer who negotiated and finalized the payment to Daniels. He was the person who executed the complex process by which the payment to Daniels was made, using an LLC and pseudonyms in the contract. And he, along with former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, actually created the false documents — the checks, invoices and the like — that are at the center of the case as a legal matter. These facts are arguably consistent with a legally innocuous scenario: Trump relied on his lawyer and CFO to ensure that Daniels was paid, but he was not aware of the underlying legal implications, and at the point of repaying Cohen, he did not intend to conceal the commission of “another crime.” Justice Juan Merchan precluded Trump’s lawyers from offering a very shaky “advice of counsel” defense — which basically would have allowed Trump to claim that he was simply following Cohen’s advice — but the facts about Cohen and Weisselberg’s involvement hang over the case regardless, and the practical implications may prove unavoidable for one or more of the jurors. On paper at least, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche’s lengthy cross-examination of Cohen also drew out a series of damaging concessions that are likely to feature prominently in the closing argument. First, Blanche appears to have established that Cohen is a serial, unrepentant liar who has often lied in legal proceedings to advance his own self-interest. In addition to lying to Congress (which was plausibly done for Trump), Cohen also lied to the Justice Department, to his bank and also to the IRS — all of which he did to help himself personally and financially. He also claims that he lied to the federal judge who took his guilty plea on tax fraud charges. Second, Blanche appears to have established that Cohen has two classic motives to lie about Trump: vengeance and greed. Cohen acknowledged that he wants to see Trump go to prison the same way he did. He also conceded that he has made millions of dollars working in the media after turning against Trump and improbably becoming something of a hero to the sort of anti-Trump news consumers who get all of their information from cable and social media. Third, and most damagingly, Blanche credibly identified several possible lies that Cohen told on the stand when he was being questioned on direct examination by prosecutors. [Of course, for all Cohen’s many lies for Trump, there is zero comparison to Trump’s continuous stream of lies, including his lie he never raw dogged the porn star.] In the most notable instance and the most attention-grabbing part of the cross-examination, Blanche claimed that Cohen was lying about what happened during a key phone call — in particular, a 96-second-long call to Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, in late October 2016. |
||
|
|
||
|
dmaestro 24-May-24, 22:30 |
If MAGA cultists are on the jury a conviction is problematic at best. |
||
|
GWU professor predicts if Trump will be guilty or not. https:///www.youtube.com/live/GrUIVPEtrf4?si=Euzn0z8smiqaH7OD 7,481 views Streamed live on May 23, 2024 #hushmoneytrial #donaldtrump #allanlichtman In this episode, Allan Lichtman discusses the Trump trial and predicts if Trump will be guilty or not. =========== There are 12 jurors in Trump's trial and all of them should agree for a guilty verdict for Trump. Even if one of them disagree for a guilty verdict, it will become a hung jury and Trump will not be prosecuted with a guilty verdict. NYC is Democrats' territory, and they are fully weaponized to prosecute their political rival of Biden, GOP Trump. Judge Merchan's daughter worked with Democrat party and collected millions of dollars in donation for Biden's political campaign. IMO, the judge is much biased against Trump. I am not sure; judge Merchan can influence and convince all the jurors to have a guilty verdict. Allan Lichtman is a GWU history professor who used his 13 keys and accurately predicted the outcomes (who will win) of presidential elections. He predicted 80% possibility that Trump will be found guilty. Please watch his video in the youtube. Let's wait and see. |
||
|
Found Guilty |
||
|
Lord Shiva |
||
|
Trump Cult Softaire has strenuously defended every crime Trump has ever engaged in, and Valley Forge has exceeded him in ardor the way a NASA shuttle launch exceeds a bottle rocket. “Why God gave that porn star unto Trump so he could satisfy his carnal lusts without sin, MAGA!” To be fair, that is not even remotely an accurate quote. I cannot think any reasonable person would believe it anymore than they might believe something said by Tucker Carlson or Alex Jones, both of whom used this defense without success hence this disclaimer. |
||
|
Shiva |
||
|
dmaestro 28-May-24, 13:32 |
As I have said, being active anti cult, I (and experts) recognized early MAGA is a cult. Beliefs are all that matter to cultists; which is why his outlaw methods actually build support. I watched cult leaders do this personally—it works and the conventional politicos didn’t get that and made him. I don’t expect any other trials to convict Trump either. The election is too close. Dems need to understand cults to see why they are failing. If elected Trump walks and pardons. He could even engineer routine sedation so his VP could pardon him. Maybe because I took the resident Government Operations Graduate Course I understand how flimsy the Constitution actually is. The only real Check and Balance is mutual fear of tables turning. The Constitution failed in 1861. We are close to that again because the patches are ripping. |
||
|
Conviction I was pretty sure this trial was in the bag, given Cohen has already served time for the crime Trump committed. Trump would owe Michael an apology if he gets off. But until I heard the closing arguments, I felt confident Trump, was going down. Now, it looks like Trump truly is above any law. Teflon Don. No one can make any charge stick, regardless of how strong the evidence. And while the documents case is rock solid, there is no reason he cannot simply pardon himself, or as Dmaestro points out—let the sycophant VP do it. He can avoid any responsibility for whatever crimes he might wish to commit, and his base would happily defend anything. Anything. |
||
|
dmaestro 29-May-24, 06:56 |
Origin Story But today Trump is a dangerous cult leader with over 100M fanatic members. He could never be convicted of anything in most of the country. NY possibly despite his boasts. We will see. The other trials no way. When you have a Teflon Don MAGA cult justice isn’t possible. His revenge tantrum is certain. |
||
|
34 Convictions But America was fine with the felon who falsified business records to conceal fornicating with a proxy daughter porn star, MAGA. And his negotiation of the surrender of Ukraine. Krasnov accomplishments: Renamed Denali Renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the idiotic Gulf of America Renaming Ukraine to Russia |
