NY: Trump on Trial!

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/Isikoff/status/1643045720935497772

[brucejoel99]

If Trump could be prosecuted for mishandling classified documents, couldn’t Biden and Pence be as well?

Technically, they could, but they will not.
They did not willfully take and/or hide documents from the Feds.
They immediately admitted to having some, and invited federal authorities to check their storage areas for the possibility of other documents that were stored by them in error.
This is a Day-And-Night difference between what the Orange Buffoon did.

That’s dumb. If they mishandled classified documents, they should be indicted.

If you commit a crime and co-operate with police, your sentence MAY be lessened, but you will still be charged with a crime.

I can already tell that this is gonna have to be said over & over again through the end of proceedings & beyond since it's already been repeated ad nauseum in relation to both the Hillary case & this very case over the last 10 months, but the standard is willful mishandling; you can't ignore inconvenient words like that just because you (politically) don't like them.

[brucejoel99]

I still just can't get over the laughable stupidity here. All he had to do to not wind up here was give the government back its own property when literally being asked for it. This indictment was frankly more avoidable than it is unprecedented.

[brucejoel99]

The judge pushed back today on the notion that this case is a joke. He said he thinks that they are very serious charges. (The federal judge said the same thing when Trump tried to get this transferred to federal court.) So if you think the case is not a big deal, well, the person who's going to be sentencing Trump if convicted thinks it is.

People forget that Michael Cohen was sentenced to 3 years in federal prison for simply making these payments that Trump's now being charged for his part in the cover-up of. What a funny "joke."

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1762188027491676303

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1762194050466103296

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/BradMossEsq/status/1762532225793302639

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1762194050466103296

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1762202591218327657https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1762201720292040929https://twitter.com/AWeissmann_/status/1762542766398001284

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1767232990612983812https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1767236381128937642

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1767345003955671366https://twitter.com/BradMossEsq/status/1767344894371115015

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/bradmossesq/status/1767637803100151872https://twitter.com/kaelandc/status/1767637274177544459

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/bradmossesq/status/1767637803100151872
https://twitter.com/kaelandc/status/1767637274177544459

https://twitter.com/KatiePhang/status/1767646968971411478https://twitter.com/rvrgraves2001/status/1767654122189201597

[brucejoel99]

So, delayed until April 29?

I guess there is time now for Trump's immunity claim to work its way up all the way to the SCOTUS.

"Up to 30 days" from Mar. 25th is Apr. 24th, the day before SCOTUS' Apr. 25th oral arguments on presidential immunity.

[brucejoel99]

So, delayed until April 29?

I guess there is time now for Trump's immunity claim to work its way up all the way to the SCOTUS.

"Up to 30 days" from Mar. 25th is Apr. 24th, the day before SCOTUS' Apr. 25th oral arguments on presidential immunity.

You don't start the trial on Wednesdays.

....



I'm sorry, I must've missed that clause in the 32nd Amendment to the New York State Constitution.

[brucejoel99]

So, delayed until April 29?

I guess there is time now for Trump's immunity claim to work its way up all the way to the SCOTUS.

"Up to 30 days" from Mar. 25th is Apr. 24th, the day before SCOTUS' Apr. 25th oral arguments on presidential immunity.

You don't start the trial on Wednesday.

....



I'm sorry, I must've missed that clause in the 32nd Amendment to the New York State Constitution.

Well, we'll see.
Trials usually start on Mondays.

Its a good point. Jury panels are usually ordered in for Mondays to minimize the disruption for the venire and allow for as efficient a voir dire as possible. Starting on Wednesday would mean telling in this case probably hundreds of panel members that they'll have to cancel vacations, arrange child care, cancel medical appointments etc. for multiple weeks before they even know if they're on the jury.

Maybe if that'd been the point they were making but they said just straight-up "you don't start the trial on Wednesday" when Manhattan criminal trials visibly can, like Jonathan Majors' jury selection last year.

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/BradMossEsq/status/1768364816488440142https://twitter.com/AnnaBower/status/1768368418485362790

[brucejoel99]

Honestly it's probably going to be delayed more than 30 days because there's 3 times as much stuff, it sounds like, being produced by SDNY next week. We'll see what the judge says.

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1768677487251259595

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1768687278413529484

[brucejoel99]

Apr. 15th trial date as of rn:

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1768738960505766011https://twitter.com/klasfeldreports/status/1768743864838344868https://twitter.com/klasfeldreports/status/1768742563819733497https://twitter.com/eorden/status/1768741967918203299https://twitter.com/bostonhistory/status/1768743449287696599

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/aweissmann_/status/1768743997189554369

[brucejoel99]

Well that's not too bad I guess. We're converging on the trial start anyway.

The judge has not set a new trial date.
It looks to me as if he will delay the start of the trial further, due to discovery and other issues.

Idk what you're reading but he didn't delay the trial date indefinitely or even push back for 30 days from Mar. 25th but only adjourned for 30 days from today, bringing us to Sun., Apr. 14th, when Manhattan Criminal Court is closed, meaning the trial date is in fact currently set for Mon., Apr. 15th, pending further consideration of SDNY's discovery delay on Mar. 25th.

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1769833341707026830

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1769835334265614713https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1769837206586196380https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1769839449930690624

[brucejoel99]

Note that the federal campaign finance analysis ultimately proved irrelevant to the misdemeanor/felony question, as filing each falsified business record after the first one was done in furtherance of the cover-up established by the first filing; i.e., it would've been chargeable only as a misdemeanor if he'd disguised Cohen's reimbursement payments by doubling them & falsely characterizing them as taxable income just the one time, but then filing the next 33 alike false business records thereby rendered all of them felonies.

[brucejoel99]

Note that the federal campaign finance analysis ultimately proved irrelevant to the misdemeanor/felony question, as filing each falsified business record after the first one was done in furtherance of the cover-up established by the first filing; i.e., it would've been chargeable only as a misdemeanor if he'd disguised Cohen's reimbursement payments by doubling them & falsely characterizing them as taxable income just the one time, but then filing the next 33 alike false business records thereby rendered all of them felonies.

I've never heard this argument before, nor has it been mentioned in any of the charging documents filed by Bragg.  And it would surprise me if the law were interpreted such that a misdemeanor could be classified as a felony merely because it's done in furtherance of another misdemeanor.  But I suppose we'll see at trial.

https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1658797454551052288https://twitter.com/aweissmann_/status/1658934773056774145
Judge Merchan, per his opinion denying Trump's omnibus motions-to-dismiss, had no problem with this culpability argument from the DA.

[brucejoel99]

So then 1 of them, the first one, has to be a misdemeanor only right? Or he's not charging that?

He's charging it: that first filing which could've been misdemeanor-only also itself became a felony upon being furthered by the filing of the 2nd false record.

[brucejoel99]

The mathematician in me is recoiling at the circular logic there but ok lol.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts I guess.

I've seen the same phenomenon with classified information during my defense contractor days.  For example: multiple pieces of information that were individually unclassified, but when combined into a synthesis, the result was classified.  Or multiple pieces at a lower classification level, that when combined resulted in a higher level.

In this case, it's because the intent to defraud & conceal said fraud (by way of following-up the filing of the first false business record with filing the 2nd-34th false business records) is establishable as the mens rea at a point in time prior to filing the first false business record.