NY: Convicted Felon Donald Trump!

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1). So turley’s opinion can’t count because he tweets a lot of criticism about the prosecution’s case. But that Norm Eisen guy’s opinion can count though he tweets a lot of praise about the prosecution’s case

2). Turley at least gives specifics (Cohen contradicts a prior witness’s testimony, didn’t know about Pecker’s work, taped his client unknowingly etc) to back up his piece. This Norm Eisen guy merely says, “hey, I sat next to a retired judge  who raved about Cohen!” .. who the retired is, and what the retired judge raves about … nobody knows. But let’s go with Norm Eisen’s claim instead of Turley’s anyways

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Guys CNN is a bastion of high-quality objective journalism! We can take what it says TO THE BANK!

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If all they have is the former FEC guy, and maybe not even him, then the highlight of their defense is the cross of Cohen and that's not going well so far.

Disagree

- they exposed for the jury that Cohen has an extreme grudge against Trump (e.g. "dictator douchebag," "Cheeto-dusted cartoon villain," "belongs in a cage") and had to be asked by prosecutors to stop talking about Trump.

-  they got Cohen to say he'd like to see Trump convicted in this case

-  they got Cohen to admit that he earned $3-4 million from writing books attacking Trump and selling anti-Trump merchandise

- they got Cohen to admit that he lied several times under oath (e.g. Mueller investigation)

Overall, I still think the prosecution, who rested their case, needed to do more. We still don't know the "other crime," there is not much about Trump's intent (i.e. did Trump know he was commiting or concealing some other crime), and they still never said why the payments couldn't have been legally or reasonably classified as "legal expenses." People ITT are counting on a superstar closing statement to answer those questions and package this case for the jury

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The prosecution has been terrible here, let's be real. They have asked essentially nothing about the documents being falsified, which is what this case is supposed to rest on. I thought they spent way too much time in the Access Hollywood stuff with Stormy and Cohen.

And then today, the star witness Cohen has repeatedly admitted under oath how many times he's lied about everything. It ain't looking good.

There has been no proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump ordered these documents to be falsified. And to be honest the whole thing just looks like a complete mess full of liars that Trump surrounded himself with. The only thing the defense has to do is introduce enough doubt, and they've done that.

Disagree on most points. I think we have good evidence they were falsified.

I disagree. I don’t think they have shown that “legal services” was an obviously invalid or unreasonable way to characterize the payment. They offer some evidence that Trump did it to help his campaign instead of his marriage, citing his statements that Melania wouldn’t care and such.  So I guess the conclusion is that the payments should’ve been characterized as “campaign contribution” or something. But the prosecution hasn’t made that clear

170.05 requires  intent on Trump’s part. Was it so obvious that the payment wasn’t “legal services,” or do you have to go diving into technical legal hodgepodge to know that the payment shouldn’t have been characterized as “legal services.” When Trump wrote “legal services,” you don’t think he might’ve really believed “legal services” was a true and accurate way to characterize the payments? The prosecution hasn’t showed otherwise

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If it's legal services they don't need to plus it up to cover his tax hit.

Huh? … the case is that he intentionally falsified business records by writing “legal services.” So you’re saying the prosecution doesn’t need to show that the payments were not actually legal services (and that Trump knew they weren’t “legal services”)?

You said there’s enough evidence that he falsified the business records. I don’t see it, nor do I see evidence of trump’s intent. A reasonable take is, simply, that Trump thought “legal services” was a true and accurate characterization

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I wonder if the jury won’t find this confusing .. the hush money contract is characterized on record by a key witness as a “perfectly legal contract.” So what was fraudulent was that payment for the perfectly legal contract was written in the books as “legal services” instead of something else (what it should have been written as, who knows .. prosecution never said )

I presume the prosecution didn’t object to this exchange. So they concede the hush money contract was legal

https://nypost.com/2024/05/16/us-news/trumps-hush-money-nyc-trial-live-updates-testimony-photos-more-2/

Jurors were shown the hush money contract struck with Stormy Daniels during Cohen's cross-examination.

“In your mind, then and now, this is a perfectly legal contract, correct?” Trump attorney Todd Blanche asked Cohen about the nondisclosure agreement.

“Yes sir,” Cohen said.

Blanche also noted that Trump did not sign the contract

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Redban, they didn't pay him to administer the contract (which had been done a long time ago when most of these payments to him were made). That could be legal services I guess. But they were paying him back for the money he spent out of pocket to act as Trump's middleman. They paid it to him as salary and doubled it so that after taxes he would get back the exact amount he paid out pocket. And they're characterizing that as legal services. It's not.

So now it’s the mere fact that Cohen paid with his own money first and got reimbursed? That’s the whole reason it’s no longer “legal services”?  If Trump had paid the $130k from the start (foregoing the need for reimbursements), then there would’ve been no falsifying records? Sounds like splitting hairs.

The other stuff about covering for taxes and such is shaky because I think some money was given as a bonus and for tech services (or something like that). My understanding is that the IRS didn’t lose any money from those reimbursements to cover Cohen’s taxes, so that line of prosecution might carry little force with ordinary folks. In fact, I think the IRS got more money in the end because of the extra reimbursements to cover Cohen’s taxes

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Damn, I was on a trip for 2 weeks and missed the conviction news when it happened (Yellowstone and Grand Tetons was worth it though)

I’m not surprised he got convicted of all counts. The E Jean Carroll verdict was a  foreshadowing that he was going to get his ass handed to him by a jury in NYC

From what I’ve seen anecdotally, Repubs seem to be standing with him, so I’m not sure what the political ramifications will be. Such a shame Repubs didn’t just nominate Haley and get away from this trouble though