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Trump indictment provides damning 'statement of facts' that lays out scheme to sway 2016 election [1]

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Date: 2023-04-04  

Right from the first paragraph, the statement is blunt in describing what the 34 charges are about:

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.

And the next section may be the most surprising.

... 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. In order to execute the unlawful scheme, the participants violated election laws and made and caused false entries in the business records of various entities in New York. The participants also took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme.

It’s surprising because the statement involved Trump in “a scheme with others” and references “the participants.” Which is exactly the language that would be expected for a conspiracy charge. So why is that charge not there?

The next part of the statement makes the underlying very clear: Trump paid “an adult film actress” $130,000 through a shell corporation set up for the purpose of hiding the source of the payment. Then Trump falsified business records to both make and conceal the payment.

In addition to the payment to Stormy Daniels, the statement speaks to Trump's scheme to suppress statements by Karen McDougal by working with Michael Cohen and AMI Entertainment CEO David Pecker to convince McDougal to sell her story to National Enquirer, then simply burying it.

During and in furtherance of his candidacy for President, the Defendant and others agreed to identify and suppress negative stories about him. Two parties to this agreement have admitted to committing illegal conduct in connection with the scheme. In August 2018, Lawyer A pleaded guilty to two federal crimes involving illegal campaign contributions, and subsequently served time in prison. In addition, in August 2018, American Media, Inc. (“AMI”), a media company that owned and published magazines and supermarket tabloids including the National Enquirer, admitted in a non-prosecution agreement that it made a payment to a source of a story to ensure that the source “did not publicize damaging allegations” about the Defendant “before the 2016 presidential election and thereby influence that election.”

Again, what’s described here is a conspiracy, and what New York election law makes illegal is a conspiracy to defraud the voting public, but the charges don’t include conspiracy. Why?

In any case, the statement of facts about the case makes clear that the charges are directly connected to these two actions: the hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels, the catch-and-kill scheme to silence Karen McDougal. Everything else—a chain of 34 false records—proceeds from this. The statement of facts lays out the behavior of Trump in these events more clearly than in any previous report.

One other thing that should be mentioned, and that’s the footnote on the statement.

This Statement of Facts contains certain of the information that is relevant to the events described herein, and does not contain all facts relevant to the charged conduct.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/4/2162059/-Trump-indictment-provides-damning-statement-of-facts-that-lays-out-scheme-to-sway-2016-election

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