NY: Convicted Felon Donald Trump!

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://mobile.twitter.com/nytimes/status/1643780608341032960

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Based on the slowdown in this thread, I think “nothing burger” is a fair label?

He was indicted, how is that a nothing burger? Also the slowing down of the thread has to do with the fact that the trial isn’t until later this year so there isn’t much to post about until then

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He wants to bait the judge into saying something that could cause change of venue or even a mistrial

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It’s telling that this was deemed the weakest case but the evidence and arguments the prosecution is bringing is pretty strong

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Trump, Venting About Lawyer in His Criminal Trial, Seeks More Aggression
Todd Blanche upended his career to represent Donald J. Trump and has been the former president’s favorite. But Mr. Trump has made him a focus of his episodic wrath.

Donald J. Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial had barely begun when he started to turn his anger toward his lead lawyer, Todd Blanche.

Although Mr. Blanche has been Mr. Trump’s favorite lawyer for some time, behind closed doors and in phone calls, the former president has complained repeatedly about him in recent weeks, according to four people familiar with the situation.

He has griped that Mr. Blanche, a former federal prosecutor and veteran litigator, has not been following his instructions closely, and has been insufficiently aggressive. Mr. Trump wants him to attack witnesses, attack what the former president sees as a hostile jury pool, and attack the judge, Juan M. Merchan.

Mr. Trump, who often complains about legal fees and sometimes refuses to pay them, has also wondered aloud why his lawyers cost so much, according to the people, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/us/politics/trump-trial-todd-blanche.html?

Ah, yes, attacking the jury, the best trial strategy known to lawyers.

Well it’s pretty clear Trump’s idea is to be as rude to the judge and jury as possible to bait a reaction that he can use to whine about an unfair trial

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Blanche got Cohen to admit the outcome of the trial affects him personally. Yikes.

He can swear Cohen personally but there is too much collaborating witnesses and evidence backing his statements up

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Defense had a good day, for once, and made Cohen look bad, but impugning his credibility on the call about the prank caller doesn't erase all the other circumstantial evidence, or the evidence of the Trump tower meeting, which they didn't even attempt to touch it seems. It was all character attack on Cohen.

Yeah I don’t get it, if the prosecution was heavily reliant on Cohen that’d be one thing but there is too much of a paper trail collaborating what he’s saying that that been presented

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The prosecution has rested its case.

Before the c-span guy comes in?

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The prosecution has rested its case.

Before the c-span guy comes in?

The defense stipulated the authenticity of the photo, rendering that unnecessary.

Oh so it’s allowed evidence?

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This gets back to what I was saying last week when there was the freak out about how the defense ripped apart Cohen’s character. There is too much of a paper trail and collaborating evidence to his testimony

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Regardless of what you feel about Trump, you almost HAVE to acquit if you're on that jury.
 
The law states that to convict someone you must find them guilty of the crime "beyond a reasonable doubt" and quite frankly, the defense has done a spectacular job of introducing tons of doubt.

Michael Cohen is the star witness for the prosecution and has already admitted the following under oath:
- He has a history of lying, including lying to Congress.
- He has a personal stake in seeing Trump convicted.
- He stole $50,000 from the Trump organization.

This is the guy who the jury is supposed to believe when it comes to Trump ordering the records to be falsified.

Also, the prosecution has done a poor job of demonstrating why this payment was made. In order for it to break the law, it has to be a campaign finance violation, in other words, done to conceal something that might harm the campaign. But they haven't proven that. The defense said it was done to save Donald from embarrassment to his family. If you're on the jury, how do you know?
I think he's gonna be found not guilty. Like 95% certain. If I'm on that jury, i'm not voting to convict based on this trial.

None of this is really accurate, let alone the "prosecution has done a poor job demonstrating why this payment was made" - they made it crystal clear why the payment was made. Not sure where you've been.

Also, again, all of the things you listed about Cohen don't mean he's lying about his testimony - when his testimony has now been corroborated numerous times through other evidence.

I don’t get why people here who keep acting like the cross examination of Cohen was so devastating keep dancing around this fact

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The defense really needs to get off the idea that the affair never happened. I know their client is probably insisting, but it just skewers their credibility with the jury.

Kinda too late for that isn’t it?

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Let me give another example of something done on purpose that will backfire on the defense: the list of ten reasons for doubt. It's snappy, it's quick, it probably came from Trump himself -- but all they've done is give the prosecution ten memorable items to easily shoot down.

The prosecution is not going to be able to shoot the GLOAT reference down.

You are massively projecting your own biases onto this dude

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https://twitter.com/AnnaBower/status/1795517084706976226

Once again Trump’s defense screwed him

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I don't think Cohen is the same person he was when these events went down.

He’s clearly a fundamentally dishonest and immoral person, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t give truthful testimony.  I think he pretty clearly did.

We cannot be sure of that. I tend to not trust known liars.

I think we can be sure beyond reasonable doubt here, especially given all the other evidence and corroborating testimony. 

Only Cohen connected Trump to the $420K agreement.
There is no documentary proof of Trump's involvement, or another witness who testified to that.
If we do not trust Cohen, we cannot convict.

So just ignoring the paper trail collaborating what Cohen said is your strategy?

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Trump team increasingly sees acquittal as unlikely, sees their only path through hung jury.

They seem to think 1 juror may be on their side. Hard to tell if it's just desperate spin at this point though

https://twitter.com/MarcACaputo/status/1795563214308082144

Probably just coping:

https://twitter.com/jayshams/status/1795802374969147534https://twitter.com/jayshams/status/1795803592110055630?s=46&t=Cl4unuqdkpnjy...

Coping is all they got left tbh lol

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Most hold out jurors are not Henry Fonda, most will break under peer pressure in the jury room, especially when most of them just want it to be done.

It’s not even an issue if “pressure” as the judge just instructed the jury they have to weigh on the paper trial evidence left so any hold outs are going to have a difficult time dismissing that stuff

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Key point - it will come down the corroborating evidence, which there is quite a bit of

This is very good for Trump.
Key parts of Cohen's testimony are not corroborated by any other evidence.
The most important part is Cohen's testimony that Trump told him to fix it and knew about it all the time.

On the contrary, there was a boatload of corroborating evidence.  This is wishcasting.

Ever post Ljube has made in this thread is wishcasting tbf

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Peculiar absence of blue avatars in this thread. How odd.

Obama24 and Ljube don’t count? 😉

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Are we getting a verdict today or tomorrow already?

Maybe but I doubt it

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Reports out of the courthouse said that the jury chose to deliberate through lunch instead of taking a break

That's interesting.  Odds of a mistrial increasing?

Huh? No it’s just increasing odds that the verdict comes in later today

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There's a note from the jury, which could be a question or a verdict.

No way it’s a verdict yet

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They want Pecker's testimony, a call with Trump, and his testimony about the trump tower meeting, and Cohen's testimony about his not finalizing the transfer rights to McDougal's story.

Oh boy 👀

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This thread very quiet, too quiet…..

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Of course the allegation is not that it was a random clerical error but done deliberately and repeatedly to hide their attempts to affect the election through unlawful means.

You and I have a very different definition of what "affecting the election through unlawful means" is. Nothing criminal about trying to suppress embarrassing stories from coming out.

Paying tens of thousands to suppress embarrassing stories is an illegal in-kind campaign contribution, though.

It is not, which is what makes the case tricky. Nothing Trump did is alleged to be illegal. It was failing to file the reimbursement which was. Had he done what most other campaigns like Tim Scott's do, which was to setup a front and spend $80 million in "consulting services" he would have been fine.

That is why the critical issue is not whether Trump paid off the National Enquirer to bury stories for him. But whether

1. He did it for reasons of winning the election(which is why the best defense argument - one Trump wouldn't allow to be made, is that no one, including Donald Trump thought he could win in 2016)

2. The bookkeeping irregularities were the result of Trump hiding a legal expenditure rather than Cohen, who has admitted to stealing money multiple times before in this manner, embezzling on his own.

The case is incredibly weak because it relies on a number of assumptions which everyone has kind of pretended are true but are absurd


However, running the line "the voters were insane to vote for me, this whole campaign was a producers sketch which got out of hand, and I hire incompetent lawyers who steal from me" would have destroyed his ego much like going after Stormy would have.

They instead hit Cohen for being a liar and a thief. The former was entirely irrelevant, the latter was potentially relevant, but they never properly made clear why.

Once again, this is wrong. Many of the accusations in this case have borne out with different types of evidence. Why are some of you so intent on acting as if there is no "there" there here?

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