Quote (Santara @ Mar 30 2023 06:49pm)
Trump is probably guilty.
It's still a witch hunt.
He could probably avoid a guilty verdict with good lawyers.
He's not known for hiring any.
Guilty of
what?
If we follow the legal theory the Manhattan prosecutors are supposedly using, then virtually every politician, campaign staffer and person related to a campaign has at some point paid for something with personal funds that the NY AG would call a campaign expense (since that now applies to
anything, as opposed to the FEC definition). And by having any receipts or record keeping of their expense, maybe just paying a credit card bill, they'd be guilty of felony falsification of business records to hide an illegal campaign contribution.
Unless there's any amazing curveball in the next few days, the legal theory used here isn't just bogus like "Mueller going after Trump by trying to stretch the phrase 'thing of value' to include protected speech'- its far beyond that.
I mean, what we've seen so far doesn't make sense at face value
So for Goomshill Does Legal Analysis: The current theory that everyone seems to embrace is that Bragg's charge against Trump is falsification of business records, upgraded to a felony by claiming its to hide an underlying crime. Attempting to get around it being long past the statute of limitations by trying to argue the timer shouldn't run down while Trump was president, which is a completely novel legal argument and changing the law retroactively (1). And trying to get around the fact that hush money paid to stormy daniels is very clearly
not a campaign expense under the FEC definition (2) by instead using the NY state board of election rules that have been overly permissive and corrupt and allowed virtually zero prosecutions for campaign fraud in the state, because they argue
anything can count as a campaign expense when related to a campaign. So for example, a congressman can use campaign funds to buy a car, drive it to a single campaign event, and then keep it for personal use, even though that's blatantly a federal crime, its not a state crime. But by inverting this standard, Bragg can argue that Trump's payment is a campaign expense where the state is concerned, a total inversion of precedent (3). Which in turn means that its clear selective prosecution since they've never used this legal theory before to indict Chuck Schumer every time he buys food at a campaign stop out of his own pocket (4) and an obviously overly vague law (5) and retroactive criminalization, an ex post facto redefinition (6). It also means that its a catch-22 that criminalizes virtually all campaign expenses that could fall between the FEC and state definitions, because either you call it a campaign expense and commit a federal crime or call it a personal expense and commit a state crime (7).
Now, I'm at least wise enough to say I don't always know whats going to happen, so there
might be more facts once this gets unsealed. But its unlikely at this point. Its also likely that in a state as biased and corrupt as New York they could indict Trump on charges of coin debasement, blasphemy and witchcraft and still find a unanimous jury to convict him, and a judge even more of a hatchetman than the jury to sign off on it.