When I see people with a red hat….
Also, it’s not about liberal vs conservative.
It’s about wrong vs right. Law & order. Treason.
...."The defendant DONALD J. TRUMP repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.”
That’s how the 13-page Statement of Facts supporting the historic criminal indictment of former president Donald Trump begins, laying out 34 felony counts of falsifying business records connected to Trump’s efforts to hide hush money payouts to porn star Stormy Daniels, former Playmate Karen McDougal, and a doorman who claimed to have information about an undisclosed Trump child.
The 34 counts of falsifying business records are all in the first degree—meaning they’re felonies under New York law. The false records relate to $420,000 in hush money reimbursements to his former attorney Michael Cohen, in connection to attempts to undermine the election by buying the silence of those three people.
“From August 2015 to December 2017, the Defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects,” that document states.
To carry out the “unlawful scheme,” the statement says, Trump and others “violated election laws and made and caused false entries in the business records of various entities in New York.” It further alleges that the participants “took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme.”
When his lawyers were asked about Trump’s attempts to intimidate the judge and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.—in one post Trump made to Truth Social, the former president is holding a baseball bat in front of Bragg’s head—Trump attorney Joe Tacopina said Trump was merely showing off “an American-made baseball bat.”
The charges largely hang on the allegedly false business records Trump created after winning the election, when he wrongfully classified those hush money payments to his former personal attorney as “legal services” related to an ongoing retainer.
While the false records counts alone would be misdemeanors, Bragg added more muscle by connecting them to the tax and election interference schemes, according to the statement of facts, thereby elevating all the false records counts to felonies.
In reality, the DA alleges, the payments should have reflected the true nature of those checks—purchasing the silence of two women in order to shield his candidacy from further allegations of sexual impropriety in the final weeks of the election."
For those watching the New York grand jury dealing with the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the revelations that more hush money payments are being explored in the case isn't new information.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump allegedly got his close friend David Pecker at the National Enquirer to run a scheme to buy Playboy model Karen McDougal's story and hire her to write fitness articles. Neither that story nor any fitness articles were ever published, and the payment was supposedly a "catch and kill" agreement to bury the matter.
Former FBI general counsel and NYU law professor Andrew Weissmann claims Pecker was being brought in to the grand jury to reveal the second piece of the Daniels story.
NBC's Vaughn Hillyard explained that the Southern District of New York had already laid out the details in the Pecker case. In fact, they laid out the argument not only in the 2018 sentencing memo for Michael Cohen, but also in describing what Pecker and his company already admitted to.
"There is a litany of statements that are important," said Hillyard. "One of those here: 'In or about Aug. 2015, David Pecker, the chairman is CEO of AMI, met with Michael Cohen, an attorney for a presidential candidate and at least one other member of the campaign that is Donald Trump's campaign. At the meeting, Pecker offered to help deal with negative stories about that presidential candidate's relationships with women, assisting the campaign in identifying such stories so they could be purchased and their publication avoided.'"
The Manhattan DA has brought in two former Trump campaign staffers, Kellyanne Conway and Hope Hicks.
Donald Trump’s mugshot:
"A New York grand jury has indicted Donald Trump on allegations linked to a business records investigation related to a "hush money" payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges. His attorney Susan Necheles confirmed the indictment. No other details have been released yet.
The specific charge or charges have not yet been made public, and one Trump attorney told CBS News his legal team is "still waiting to learn" details of the indictment.
Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg's office said in a statement that it had contacted Trump's attorney "to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.'s office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal," and more guidance would be provided "when the arraignment date is selected." ...
The case stems from a payment made just days before Trump was elected president in 2016. His former attorney, Michael Cohen, arranged a $130,000 wire transfer to Daniels to buy her silence about an alleged affair...
The indictment comes as Trump faces other potential criminal cases. In Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis is mulling charges in an investigation into alleged efforts by Trump and more than a dozen of his allies to undermine [Georgia]'s results in the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden. A special purpose grand jury conducted a six-month probe last year and delivered a report with its findings to Willis in January. The majority of that report was ordered sealed, at least until charging decisions are made.
In Washington, D.C., special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing two Justice Department investigations into alleged efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election, and Trump's handling of sensitive government documents [note: specifically top secret, classified documents] found at his Mar-a-Lago home and possible obstruction of efforts to retrieve them."
-via CBS News, 3/30/23
TRUMP'S BEEN INDICTED
And by the way he is going to have to surrender himself to the Manhattan DA's office...
(Obviously/sadly he's going to be released instead of held in jail until trial, but STILL)
-via BBC News, 3/30/23
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