NY: Trump on Trial!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Almost all indictments in this country are political in one way or another, Trump's not least of all, because prosecutors are elected, often partisan, politicians who run on platforms promising to indict or not indict specific categories of suspects or even specific categories of crimes. You'd think that the cavalcade of recent high-profile examples of this being abused would lead to some calls to change this, but apparently not.

[Badger]

Almost all indictments are this country are political in one way or another, Trump's not least of all, because prosecutors are elected, often partisan, politicians who run on platforms promising to indict or not indict specific categories of suspects or even specific categories of crimes. You'd think that the cavalcade of recent high-profile examples of this being abused would lead to some calls to change this, but apparently not.

No.  Just no.

[John Dule]

On an additional vote: Kind of funny is that the police listed Trump's height at 6'1 and weight at 270 lbs (!!). Not close to the 6'3 and 239 lbs he claimed. Although that was obvious from the start. That's a BMI close to 36. He's obese big league.

https://www.politicalflare.com/2023/04/the-nypd-weighed-trump-as-part-of-the-booking-process-and-guess-what-trump-doesnt-weigh-239-pounds-and-isnt-63/

Last time Trump will ever make it to 270.

[Damocles]

Last time Trump will ever make it to 270.

Too many hamberders and covfefe

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Garland doesn't need an Independent Counsel for the J6 Indictments because he has enough evidence for an indictment from the Select CMT he is playing politics with that Indictments because the FBI Director is Wrary and he is Trump Appointment

Nathan is absolutely right there is politics in every INDICTMENTS but it's an indictment it's not a conviction I keep saying this it's not that big of a deal until we have a trial

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Almost all indictments in this country are political in one way or another, Trump's not least of all, because prosecutors are elected, often partisan, politicians who run on platforms promising to indict or not indict specific categories of suspects or even specific categories of crimes. You'd think that the cavalcade of recent high-profile examples of this being abused would lead to some calls to change this, but apparently not.

No.  Just no.

Okay, almost all indictments in parts of the country where DA races are high-profile ideological barn-burners.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

As I said before I am not that interested in this Indictment but the GA and J6 Indictments due to fact it will hurt RS chances even further in 24 and McCarthy, stopped the J6 Investigation, so naturally RS like Fox news are back to their same ol same ol thinking that the status quo with giant tax cuts for the rich can stand, anyone can stand with Corporate, it takes time to go against Corporate that's why Apartheid took 100 yrs after slavery to end even if Lincoln wasn't killed it still would of sux for blks no 6 th Amendment right to free council until Gideon v wainwright Lynching and Chain Gangs he was a compassionate Conserv anyways but Kennedy's death and Chap Acquitted changed history and began the Reagan Revolution

The J6 Investigation is stalled because there is a Republican FBI Director that's probably listening to Clarence Thomas to stall the case with Ginni THOMAS, that's his boss, there are blk lawyers but no blk FBI agents due to FBI agents come straight from Commission officers out of military there are blk Commission officers but they don't go to FBI

Trump says he is gonna get acquitted from this anyways not GA or J6

[Torie]

It's time to get back to the case at hand, after an interruption in the usual programming.

One major problem with the Bragg case is mixing and matching state and federal law. Using purported federal violations to extend the SOL for state violations causes considerable skepticism in elite legal circles. But now a new angle is the state bookkeeping fraud was to facilitate state tax fraud, state on state rather than state on federal.

The NYT article does not get very far in the weeds on this, so indulge me while I speculate a bit. Trump seemed to take a phony tax deduction by converting a non-deductible hush money payment into deductible legal services. Cohen converted a non-taxable reimbursement payment into pseudo taxable income for himself, and thus the gross up payment. The state might have ended up net with more tax revenue, but it was attended by fraud and involved switching taxpayers.

Normally a state would not be too motivated to pursue tax fraud where it made money, but nothing about this case is normal. Wheels within wheels within wheels. The new theory is confusingly pleaded, perhaps by design, but soon the prosecution will have to lay its cards on the table, and spill its guts: 

“What is going to happen now is that the prosecutors are obligated to disclose things in discovery,” he said. “Defense counsel will learn in discovery the nature of the elections laws violations and the tax issues that were raised by Mr. Bragg in his statement of facts.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/us/politics/trump-bookkeeping-fraud-taxes.html

Is the New York state statute of limitations for tax fraud longer than the 3 years for the feds?

https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/publications/general/pub131.pdf

[Torie]

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-asks-republicans-defund-doj-fbi-truth-social-tirade-2023-4

Just when you think that Trump has reached the apogee of his narcissistic derangement, he exceeds expectations yet again. Does he know that his indictment was not brought by the outfits he wants to defund? I guess if totally defunded, then there would be no money the document case to be pursued further, so maybe Trump is just thinking ahead.

One virtue of the documents case, is that it much simpler legally than the hush money case.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

It's time to get back to the case at hand, after an interruption in the usual programming.

One major problem with the Bragg case is mixing and matching state and federal law. Using purported federal violations to extend the SOL for state violations causes considerable skepticism in elite legal circles. But now a new angle is the state bookkeeping fraud was to facilitate state tax fraud, state on state rather than state on federal.

The NYT article does not get very far in the weeds on this, so indulge me while I speculate a bit. Trump seemed to take a phony tax deduction by converting a non-deductible hush money payment into deductible legal services. Cohen converted a non-taxable reimbursement payment into pseudo taxable income for himself, and thus the gross up payment. The state might have ended up net with more tax revenue, but it was attended by fraud and involved switching taxpayers.

Normally a state would not be too motivated to pursue tax fraud where it made money, but nothing about this case is normal. Wheels within wheels within wheels. The new theory is confusingly pleaded, perhaps by design, but soon the prosecution will have to lay its cards on the table, and spill its guts: 

“What is going to happen now is that the prosecutors are obligated to disclose things in discovery,” he said. “Defense counsel will learn in discovery the nature of the elections laws violations and the tax issues that were raised by Mr. Bragg in his statement of facts.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/us/politics/trump-bookkeeping-fraud-taxes.html

IANAL, but is it possible that Bragg will tie these charges to the existing felonies for the Trump Organization?

[Torie]

It's time to get back to the case at hand, after an interruption in the usual programming.

One major problem with the Bragg case is mixing and matching state and federal law. Using purported federal violations to extend the SOL for state violations causes considerable skepticism in elite legal circles. But now a new angle is the state bookkeeping fraud was to facilitate state tax fraud, state on state rather than state on federal.

The NYT article does not get very far in the weeds on this, so indulge me while I speculate a bit. Trump seemed to take a phony tax deduction by converting a non-deductible hush money payment into deductible legal services. Cohen converted a non-taxable reimbursement payment into pseudo taxable income for himself, and thus the gross up payment. The state might have ended up net with more tax revenue, but it was attended by fraud and involved switching taxpayers.

Normally a state would not be too motivated to pursue tax fraud where it made money, but nothing about this case is normal. Wheels within wheels within wheels. The new theory is confusingly pleaded, perhaps by design, but soon the prosecution will have to lay its cards on the table, and spill its guts: 

“What is going to happen now is that the prosecutors are obligated to disclose things in discovery,” he said. “Defense counsel will learn in discovery the nature of the elections laws violations and the tax issues that were raised by Mr. Bragg in his statement of facts.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/us/politics/trump-bookkeeping-fraud-taxes.html

IANAL, but is it possible that Bragg will tie these charges to the existing felonies for the Trump Organization?

That was not pled, and Trump was not personally tagged in that proceeding for some reason.

[Badger]

Almost all indictments in this country are political in one way or another, Trump's not least of all, because prosecutors are elected, often partisan, politicians who run on platforms promising to indict or not indict specific categories of suspects or even specific categories of crimes. You'd think that the cavalcade of recent high-profile examples of this being abused would lead to some calls to change this, but apparently not.

No.  Just no.

Okay, almost all indictments in parts of the country where DA races are high-profile ideological barn-burners.

Okay, with that far reaching caveat, probably/generally.

[Badger]

It's time to get back to the case at hand, after an interruption in the usual programming.

One major problem with the Bragg case is mixing and matching state and federal law. Using purported federal violations to extend the SOL for state violations causes considerable skepticism in elite legal circles. But now a new angle is the state bookkeeping fraud was to facilitate state tax fraud, state on state rather than state on federal.

The NYT article does not get very far in the weeds on this, so indulge me while I speculate a bit. Trump seemed to take a phony tax deduction by converting a non-deductible hush money payment into deductible legal services. Cohen converted a non-taxable reimbursement payment into pseudo taxable income for himself, and thus the gross up payment. The state might have ended up net with more tax revenue, but it was attended by fraud and involved switching taxpayers.

Normally a state would not be too motivated to pursue tax fraud where it made money, but nothing about this case is normal. Wheels within wheels within wheels. The new theory is confusingly pleaded, perhaps by design, but soon the prosecution will have to lay its cards on the table, and spill its guts: 

“What is going to happen now is that the prosecutors are obligated to disclose things in discovery,” he said. “Defense counsel will learn in discovery the nature of the elections laws violations and the tax issues that were raised by Mr. Bragg in his statement of facts.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/us/politics/trump-bookkeeping-fraud-taxes.html

Is the New York state statute of limitations for tax fraud longer than the 3 years for the feds?

https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/publications/general/pub131.pdf

Come on Tori my man. I'm not lucky enough to have retired yet and still have to earn my daily quota of billable hours You can't expect me to find time to read all that for myself. Just spoon feed me the answer you lucky retired old barrister. 

[Torie]

It's time to get back to the case at hand, after an interruption in the usual programming.

One major problem with the Bragg case is mixing and matching state and federal law. Using purported federal violations to extend the SOL for state violations causes considerable skepticism in elite legal circles. But now a new angle is the state bookkeeping fraud was to facilitate state tax fraud, state on state rather than state on federal.

The NYT article does not get very far in the weeds on this, so indulge me while I speculate a bit. Trump seemed to take a phony tax deduction by converting a non-deductible hush money payment into deductible legal services. Cohen converted a non-taxable reimbursement payment into pseudo taxable income for himself, and thus the gross up payment. The state might have ended up net with more tax revenue, but it was attended by fraud and involved switching taxpayers.

Normally a state would not be too motivated to pursue tax fraud where it made money, but nothing about this case is normal. Wheels within wheels within wheels. The new theory is confusingly pleaded, perhaps by design, but soon the prosecution will have to lay its cards on the table, and spill its guts:  

“What is going to happen now is that the prosecutors are obligated to disclose things in discovery,” he said. “Defense counsel will learn in discovery the nature of the elections laws violations and the tax issues that were raised by Mr. Bragg in his statement of facts.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/us/politics/trump-bookkeeping-fraud-taxes.html

Is the New York state statute of limitations for tax fraud longer than the 3 years for the feds?

https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/publications/general/pub131.pdf

Come on Tori my man. I'm not lucky enough to have retired yet and still have to earn my daily quota of billable hours You can't expect me to find time to read all that for myself. Just spoon feed me the answer you lucky retired old barrister.  

The SOL is 3 years, unless the tax evasion was "abusive," and then it is 6 years. What is abusive? Seems kind of subjective, but below is one fact pattern that was found abusive, where the mark up, instead of being 10%-25% was 500% - pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered and this was a hog. You can make up your own mind about a hush money payment via a conduit being called legal fees.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Almost all indictments in this country are political in one way or another, Trump's not least of all, because prosecutors are elected, often partisan, politicians who run on platforms promising to indict or not indict specific categories of suspects or even specific categories of crimes. You'd think that the cavalcade of recent high-profile examples of this being abused would lead to some calls to change this, but apparently not.

No.  Just no.

Okay, almost all indictments in parts of the country where DA races are high-profile ideological barn-burners.

Okay, with that far reaching caveat, probably/generally.

The initial lack of the caveat is on me; I overestimated how much of the country has that dynamic in DA races (which is a bit embarrassing, frankly, because, as you probably know, I've proudly lived most of my life in the sorts of periurban-to-rural areas that tend not to). Thanks for the pushback.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Almost all indictments in this country are political in one way or another, Trump's not least of all, because prosecutors are elected, often partisan, politicians who run on platforms promising to indict or not indict specific categories of suspects or even specific categories of crimes. You'd think that the cavalcade of recent high-profile examples of this being abused would lead to some calls to change this, but apparently not.

No.  Just no.

Okay, almost all indictments in parts of the country where DA races are high-profile ideological barn-burners.

Okay, with that far reaching caveat, probably/generally.

The initial lack of the caveat is on me; I overestimated how much of the country has that dynamic in DA races (which is a bit embarrassing, frankly, because, as you probably know, I've proudly lived most of my life in the sorts of periurban-to-rural areas that tend not to). Thanks for the pushback.

This reminds me of the fact that while "collecting" Facebook friends from my current church I was a bit disappointed to see that the current and final board chair and her husband were vocal supporters of the more conservative candidate for Hennepin County Attorney (slightly because I'm not really a huge fan of the more progressive candidate who beat her and is the current incumbent even though I did vote for her) although upon some deep diving this appears to be mostly just because she lives in their neighborhood and they've known her personally for a couple years (they live in one of the gentrified pockets of north Minneapolis which is actually a pretty logical and fitting place for a black woman who grew up on the north side and is now a judge to live so it makes sense) and were only vocal on those grounds, otherwise not much political content at all aside from generic stuff about how terrible Trump was for the country and expressing shock and horror at January 6.

But what's especially interesting about that race is seeing how many suburban and exurban Republicans voted for the progressive candidate...apparently a white lesbian to them was still preferable to a straight black woman who campaigned on being tough on crime, lol. So an ideological race but not really a typical ideological breakdown in the results. If you had shown me the results without knowing anything about the candidates I would be perplexed trying to figure out how one candidate won the hipster parts of Minneapolis and the Republican exurbs while the other candidate won the black areas of Minneapolis and the affluent and Democratic suburbs.

Arguably even weirder was the race for Dakota County Attorney where the more progressive candidate was a former DFL State Senator and mayor of one of the more Republican cities in the county who narrowly lost to his law enforcement and outgoing legal establishment-backed opponent who said nothing about her partisan affiliation or her ideology or plans in general aside from "I've prosecuted criminals", but his strongholds was his former district and city where he was a popular mayor, along with the progressive stronghold of the part of Northfield in the district. But he lost the most Democratic areas in the north. A map without knowing who the candidates are would make you think he was the conservative in the race unless you know about the Northfield precinct and then be absolutely puzzled figuring out how he carried that one.

[emailking]

Are you saying this guy should recuse himself because he gave $15 to Biden and his daughter likes Harris?

Personally I don't give 2 ****s about it.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Are you saying this guy should recuse himself because he gave $15 to Biden and his daughter likes Harris?

Personally I don't give 2 ****s about it.

From my observation, most Republicans seem to believe that only Republican investigators/judges/prosecutors should investigate Democrats.  However, they also seem to believe that only Republican investigators/judges/prosecutors should investigate Republicans.

[emailking]

Are you saying this guy should recuse himself because he gave $15 to Biden and his daughter likes Harris?

Personally I don't give 2 ****s about it.

The amount of the donation is immaterial. He took an oath when he became a judge. If I steal a 10-cent lollipop from the local candy store, I can and should still get in trouble, regardless of how cheap the lollipop was:

American Bar Association Model Code of Judicial Conduct, which prohibits judges from “soliciting funds for, paying an assessment to, or making a contribution to a political organization or candidate.”

Was that a yes or no?

[President Johnson]

Are you saying this guy should recuse himself because he gave $15 to Biden and his daughter likes Harris?

Personally I don't give 2 ****s about it.

Unless there's clear evidence the judge is ruling against Trump for purely political reasons, he should recuse himself. That however is not the case or hasn't been proven yet. If you're going to start to ask for every judges political preferences as soon as a politican is charged with something, you're getting into hot water. That would be extremely dangerous for the trust in institutions. Trump will always whine about a witch hunt unless he's fully cleared.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Even CNN calling out the Trump-hating judge

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/06/politics/judge-merchan-trump-biden-contribution/index.html


The Judge overseeing Trump’s case has donated money to ActBlue, the Progressive Turnout Project, Stop Republicans PAC and to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign.

Why would the Supreme Court of New York assign this case to such a biased person?

That’s not to mention his daughter who worked for Kamala Harris

Do you believe judge Aileen Cannon should've recused herself?

[emailking]

Now the judge is a jackass because of the donation? I should have learned my lesson after what you said about the DA.

[emailking]

Even if he broke a rule, and I don't think you're right about that, I do not make a moral judgment of the guy for giving $15. And you shouldn't either.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Now the judge is a jackass because of the donation? I should have learned my lesson after what you said about the DA.

The guy broke the American Bar Association Model Code of Judicial Conduct. We are counting on him to make decisions about people’s freedoms in Manhattan Supreme Court, and he is breaking his oath by donating to politics campaigns when he isn’t supposed to do. He is a jackass because he is supposed to be held at a higher standard, given the grave importance of his occupation

I think shoving a judge's nomination through in your home federal district in the lame duck session just so you can rely on her to make slanted rulings in your favor is a much bigger betrayal of public trust than a $15 donation.

[John Dule]

Now the judge is a jackass because of the donation? I should have learned my lesson after what you said about the DA.

The guy broke the American Bar Association Model Code of Judicial Conduct. We are counting on him to make decisions about people’s freedoms in Manhattan Supreme Court, and he is breaking his oath by donating to politics campaigns when he isn’t supposed to do. He is a jackass because he is supposed to be held at a higher standard, given the grave importance of his occupation

Attend law school and you'll realize that the code is more like "guidelines" than actual rules.