Trump's hush money trial to go to Jury on Tues. May 28th -- I'm actually hoping for a 10-2 hung jury

[Multicolored Lemur]

This might be the best of all worlds as far as convincing people who like President Trump that, yes, he probably did some stuff, but not enough to convict.

Meaning, your guy comes with some baggage!

And if you like inflation slowing coming back down to earth without a recession, you might want to have President Biden stay the course. Plus, the Federal Reserve who slowly nudged up interest rates to cool the economy. Overall inflation was about 3 and 1/2 percent for the month of April. Meaning, that if that same rate continued for a whole year it would be 3.5%. Please note, not everyone buys the same "market basket" of goods, so some people are hurt more than this average.

I can comfortably say --

President George W. Bush,

President Barack Obama

President Donald J. Trump

President Joe Biden

 

[AgnosticBoy]

This might be the best of all worlds as far as convincing people who like President Trump that, yes, he probably did some stuff, but not enough to convict.

Meaning, your guy comes with some baggage!

I would say to the Trump supporters, that they better hope he wins. I think the alternative could be jail time, but then I've been reading that a felony conviction doesn't disqualify someone from becoming a president.

I've honestly kept up very little with the trial but from my reading I noticed that a lot of the evidence comes from Trump's former attorney, Cohen. The case my come down to Cohen's credibility. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump did offer hush money (not sure if he did in a way to violate any campaign laws). Trump is definitely no saint.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

I noticed that a lot of the evidence comes from Trump's former attorney, Cohen.

I disagree.

There’s enough evidence elsewhere. Cohen’s kind of the cherry on top.

However, some jurors might viewed him as essential, and that may cause a hung jury.

Or . . .

The jury might find not guilty.

In my very limited experience, I’ve been a juror on 3 different trials, and the pressure to come to a “unanimous decision” is probably stronger than it should be.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

@Multicolored Lemur


Reading up on it more. Here's some areas I've been diggin into...

What is Trump being charged with in the hush money trial?

Trump isn’t technically accused of having an affair, which he denies and which is not illegal. The hush money itself, represented by a contract between two parties, is not necessarily illegal either. Hush money was paid by the Trump-supporting publisher of the National Enquirer to the former Playboy model Karen McDougal, and, separately, it was paid by Cohen to Daniels.

But in this case, the payments, which were intended to hide details from voters before the 2016 election, violated campaign finance law. National Enquirer’s parent company admitted wrongdoing, and Cohen pleaded guilty to violating campaign law and served time in prison.

"Did the prosecutor connect the hush money case to interference with the 2016 presidential election?"

Yes. This is an important element of the case. Falsifying business records in New York is a misdemeanor. The felony charge here is falsifying business records to further another crime. And this is where the case against Trump gets unique. The other crime is a campaign finance violation to which Cohen has already pleaded guilty. It is a state crime made a felony by furthering a federal crime.

Source: CNN

Trump is charged with how he repaid Michael Cohen. Prosecutors allege Trump was responsible for falsifying 34 different business records to hide the true nature of that repayment, calling them legal fees instead, and that Trump did so intending to commit or conceal another crime, a violation of state election law.

Source: PBS

Evidence from the Prosecution side?

Jessica Roth:
There's ample evidence that Michael Cohen and Allen Weisselberg concocted this scheme and participated in it. You hear that not only from Michael Cohen, but that's corroborated by the records in Allen Weisselberg's handwriting, essentially showing how the numbers were worked out, so Michael Cohen would be reimbursed for precisely this amount.

But Allen Weisselberg hasn't testified. And so, in effect, there are really only three people, according to the prosecution's theory of the case, who have direct knowledge of Trump's participation in the falsification of the records scheme. And Michael Cohen is the only one of those three who have testified.

Now, his testimony is corroborated circumstantially by other evidence, for example, by phone records that show that Cohen was in communication with Trump around the same time that he said he was or on the dates he said he was about this scheme. There was testimony from Trump's White House assistant, who said Cohen came to the White House, had discussions with Trump around the same time that Cohen says they were talking about this scheme.

And then there was testimony from employees at the Trump Organization, who said that Trump was very involved in the nitty-gritty of payments and records at the Trump Organization, which would suggest that, generally, it was his pattern to be kept apprised of payments and what they were for.

And so, all of that tends to corroborate what Michael Cohen is saying substantively about this matter, even though there's no other witness with direct knowledge of it.

Source: PBS

 

[AgnosticBoy]

cont'd from previous post...

Here's one analysis of the Defense side...

The defense maintains that Trump was too preoccupied with running the country in 2017 to have been involved in the year's worth of bogus "retainer" reimbursement checks to Cohen, Business Insider noted.

To link Trump to the alleged scheme, the jury must trust Cohen, who claimed that he and Weisselberg presented this document to Trump's office in mid-January 2017, the outlet added.

The defense has disputed that this meeting took place and has asserted that Cohen and Weisselberg are solely responsible for any falsified documents.

Source: Benzinga

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Here's a good analysis of what to expect in tomorrow's closing arguments for Trump's hush money trial:

Two key points that were brought up is that the prosecution side will try to make the point that the case doesn't just depend on the testimony of Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen, but also that there is corroborating documentation. The defense will try to highlight Cohen's credibility problems and the fact that the prosecution chose not to call a key witness named Weisselberg (is it because he had something damaging to the prosecution's case?).

It will all be interesting to watch!

 

[AgnosticBoy]

What happened today? Any verdict yet? I'll take a look myself in a few.

Both sides presented their closing arguments. Reports are it was 11 hours in total.

CNN has this nice graphic that shows the next steps of the trial. Next up is jury deliberation. https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-n...l-05-28-24/h_b136eb7f78c791183de84eb1ef18d6bb

 

[AgnosticBoy]

Trump guilty on all 34 counts. Wow! I'm actually shocked by that verdict, and I imagine Trump is as well. It's not that I didn't think he was guilty because I honestly had no opinion either way. It's the historical magnitude of it! A former president and a presidential candidate being found guilty in the middle of an election. I'm curious to see how the elections will go from here.

Unprecedented to say the least!

 

[AgnosticBoy]

We know what Trump's verdict was, and we can expect that the Democrats will use it against him. But now we also know that the president's son is also a convicted felon. I'm curious if that takes the sting out of Trump being seen as a felon. Can President Biden show that he has something against Trump for being a felon while his own son is a felon? I don't think that's good optics for him now, imo. And I consider what Biden's son did as being worst than Trump he was involved in drugs and more.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

I consider what Biden's son did as being worst than Trump

Yes, drugs sound like a deeper downward spiral.

Okay, I’m not a big fan of the “high energy” approach to drug education in which you make drugs “exciting,” a big sin, a temptation, all that.

Drug addiction has a lot of boredom and drabness associated with it.

And then, especially with teenagers and young adults, you’ve got to just level with them. You over-state by just 1 %, they can just freeze you out.