NY: Trump on Trial!

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

--snip--

Up now for the prosecution:

— Daniel Dixon, another custodial witness who works as a compliance analyst AT&T

We're starting to see phone records.

Why are phone records important to this case? It's been clear since the case has been charged.

On Oct. 26, 2016, Michael Cohen opened his shell company to funnel a $130,000 home equity loan to Stormy Daniels' lawyer — "shortly after speaking on the phone" with Trump

From the exhibits, it's clear that the phone records have Cohen's name, but it's not immediately clear it's the same call.

We'll wait for the release of today's exhibits later.

On cross, Trump's lawyer Emil Bove presses the witness on alternative explanations for the records.

Q: You're familiar with the concept of a pocket dial, right?
A: Correct.

Q: There's a lot of data here, but the data has limits, right?
The witness says they are logs.

--snip--

Thanks for posting in this format, it makes it a LOT more readable.

Yes, I strongly agree with this, thanks!  My major issue with all the tweets posted here is not with the content, but that it makes the thread much more difficult to read and follow.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

I don’t see how this can be true.  The case involves several very complicated and thorny issues of statutory and regulatory intepretation, constitutional rights of the criminally accused, and state versus federal jurisdiction that even progressive election law scholars are thoroughly divided on.  I’m a progressive election law scholar myself who has been skeptical of these charges from the outset, and the prosecution has done almost nothing the address my concerns.

Typically the job of juries is to decide "questions of fact," whereas it is the job of judges to decide "questions of law." This is partly because most jurors are non-lawyers and are not expected to be able to decide, or to decide, questions about things like statutory interpretation (although funnily enough, this particular case has 2 lawyer-jurors).

Juries are typically thought to be supposed to take the judge's interpretation of law as a given, and to follow the instructions given to them by the judge as to what the law is.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/question_of_law

A question of law is an issue that is always resolved by a judge, not a jury, including:

    A question regarding the application or interpretation of a law
    A question regarding what the relevant law is, if there are two or more mutually exclusive laws, a judge determines which law is relevant
    A question that has been authoritatively answered by law, or
    A question of fact that nevertheless has been reserved for judges, not juries, to resolve

Questions of law are distinct from questions of fact, which are questions for a jury in a jury trial or a judge in a bench trial when acting as the factfinder. Mixed questions of law and fact are also often resolved by juries.

The judge's interpretation of the law can be debated, but if so, that is normally a matter for an appellate court to deal with, not a jury.



Of course, the distinction between questions of law and questions of fact is not exact and cannot always be cleanly separated. But at the same time, it is not like there is no distinction that can be made most of the time for practical purposes. Bottom line, it is not really the jury's job to wade into the sorts of questions that "legal scholars" worry about.



For example, suppose you have a murder case. The jury is supposed to decide if the defendant is guilty or not guilty of murder, after the judge explains to them what exactly murder is and what facts they would need to find to find the defendant guilty. On the other hand, the jury is not supposed to sit there and say, "but hey, I am reading the text of this murder statute with my fine-toothed comb, and under my interpretation it looks like murder is not a crime at all in the first place."

Juries can do that if they want in extreme circumstances and they can't be stopped if they choose to do so because of double jeopardy etc, but that is effectively jury nullification.

Yeah, I suppose much of my skepticism derives from issues that would need to be hashed out by an appellate court. It’s just striking to me how little the actual law seems to be coming into play in this trial when the law is so unclear as to its application to such an unusual set of facts.

[Progressive Pessimist]

It won't take a whole day to explain why Trump's actions violated the law. Establishing what Trump did takes way more time, how those actions were illegal could probably be summed up in about 10 minutes.

Michael Cohen's testimony will probably make this clear. After all, he actually went to prison on charges related to this incident.

[brucejoel99]

It won't take a whole day to explain why Trump's actions violated the law. Establishing what Trump did takes way more time, how those actions were illegal could probably be summed up in about 10 minutes.

Michael Cohen's testimony will probably make this clear. After all, he actually went to prison on charges related to this incident.

Rly funny Trump wants the jury to see he can be normal & relatable by forgiving Westerhout for her disrespectful "youthful indiscretions" when, if anything, he's incentivized to be himself against her testimony for verifying the Feb. 8th Oval Office meeting where Trump & Cohen allegedly confirmed Trump (& the Org. handling his expenses) would reimburse the $130K:

(I)t looks like Cohen's testimony is critical to the DA's establishing the essential "causes a false entry" element of the [34] felony 175.10 counts charged in connection with [the documents related to the 34 counts]. What evidence corroborates testimony by C[ohen] that T[rump] was fully aware of how the reimbursement of C[ohen] would be logged on the T[rump] Org[anization]'s books -- falsely as "legal expenses"? DA must establish that T[rump] knew that the payments to C[ohen] were going to be falsely recorded on T[rump] Org[anization] books as "legal expenses."

[W]ithout evidence establishing, B[eyond] A R[easonable] D[oubt], that T[rump] had this knowledge, can a guilty verdict be returned on any felony count?

Obviously, Weisselberg has intimate knowledge of why the payments to Cohen were falsely recorded as "legal expenses." And he may know that Trump knew that the payments were going to be falsely recorded. But there's no way he testifies unless the DA immunizes him. And they aren't going to do that without having him locked into statements that implicate Trump. What's C[ohen] going to testify to re: W[eisselberg]'s knowledge of the false recording of the payments as "legal expenses"? Defense is going to have to try and decimate C[ohen]'s credibility. And DA's going to have to present everything it can to corroborate testimony by C[ohen] that T[rump] knew the payments would be falsely recorded as "legal expenses."

Who told McConney [on or around Tues., Feb. 14th, 2017] to direct Tarasoff to "post to legal expenses"?

[emailking]

Yeah I think Cohen's testimony is going to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting here (falsification of records, why it was illegal) and a lot of the witnesses so far have been geared at corroborating him on the whole scheme so the jury will believe him.

[brucejoel99]

Yeah I think Cohen's testimony is going to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting here (falsification of records, why it was illegal) and a lot of the witnesses so far have been geared at corroborating him on the whole scheme so the jury will believe him.

Yep, as Cohen can directly testify to the reimbursement & false invoices: he's well-corroborated by everybody else, but he's the direct evidence needed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump was aware of the scheme to have Weisselberg falsify the business records by recording the reimbursement as legal expenses (on top of Weisselberg's severance package-for-silence, which will presumably be brought up in summation after he pleads the 5th to remind jurors that Weisselberg wouldn't have executed the scheme without Micromanager Trump's knowing approval). Watch attacking Cohen on cross go about as effectively as attacking Stormy did since it's no secret that his dirty laundry was for the benefit of Donald Trump.