(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Some cheese w/ your whine, MAGA Republicans? Answers to their complaints & objections [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-01 There have been many MAGA Republican officials, mostly elected MAGA Republicans, who have made what almost all of them know are false and silly complaints and claims about the campaign finance election interference trial and the conviction of the defendant. . . They have claimed that the jury instructions were wrong or unconstitutional. . . This claim is based upon the idea that it was wrong to say that the prosecutors did not have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the reason the business records were falsified was to conceal the campaign finance law violation. . . This is untrue. The charges were that Donald Trump falsified business records in order to conceal another crime. The words in order to explain the motive for falsifying the business records. The prosecution does not have to prove motive beyond a reasonable doubt here. . . The law simply says that it is an E felony in New York to falsify business records in order to conceal another crime. That's it. . . So long as a juror concludes that the business records were falsified in order to conceal some crime and that it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the business records were falsified, that juror must reach a verdict of guilty. . . If Juror A concludes that it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that business records were falsified and concludes that the reason that the business records were falsified was to conceal a campaign finance law violation and Juror B concludes that it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that business records were falsified and concludes that the reason was to conceal tax crimes, then each juror must reach a verdict of guilty. Each juror has concluded that it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that business records were falsified and that the reason was to conceal another crime. Thus, they don't need to agree on which crime the defendant intended to conceal by falsifying the business records. . . The jurors don't need to believe that the only reason that the business records were falsified was to conceal a crime. If they believe, despite the fact that all the evidence showed that it was to conceal a campaign finance law violation and none of it showed that it was done to spare Melania's feelings, that one of the reasons that the business records were falsified was to spare Melania's feelings and they conclude that another reason was to conceal some crime, then they still concluded that the business records were falsified to conceal a crime. Thus, the jurors don't need to conclude that the only motive for falsifying the business records was to conceal a crime in order to reach a guilty verdict. . . They have claimed that the defendant could not get a fair trial because the jury members reside in Manhattan. . . This is not true. The crime is prosecuted wherever the crime occurs. Special Counsel Jack Smith was surely aware that there was a probability of 1 in 3 of catching Judge Aileen Cannon if they filed in the Southern District of Florida. However, he did not want to be found to have engaged in "forum shopping". "The US Constitution requires a charge to be brought where the crime occurred; that typically gives the prosecution considerable discretion as crimes often occur in multiple jurisdictions. Here, however it was not clear that venue existed elsewhere for all of the charges; moreover, bringing the case in any other venue might have appeared to be ' forum shopping ' since the main locus of the crimes is Florida." (Murray, Melissa and Weissmann, Andrew 2024, p. 231). In the same way, this is the appropriate venue. I have my doubts that Washington, D.C. would have served the defendant better. . . They have claimed that this was a kangaroo court or somehow biased. . . This is untrue. . . Judge Merchan ruled against allowing the Hollywood Access tape with the defendant's own voice from being played in the courtroom in front of the jury. He required the prosecution to read it in their own voices. He did that to protect the defendant. Had Judge Merchan been seeking to act in an unfair way, then he would not have done this. . . Judge Merchan ruled against allowing specific parts of potential testimony from Stormy Daniels despite the relevance and the help it would have afforded the prosecutors in making it clear that her account of their encounter was accurate. Mr. Blanche opened the door to this by his opening statement claiming that the defendant and Stormy Daniels never had sex. This goes to motive. It was the reason for the payment to Stormy Daniels. They knew that this was a campaign contribution which they wanted to hide. This is why Donald Trump falsified the business records. Had Judge Merchan sought to act unfairly, he would not have done this. . . Judge Merchan made objections himself for the purpose of protecting the defendant's rights when the defense counsel failed to do so. He clearly did not have to make those objections himself. Had Judge Merchan sought to act unfairly, then he would not have done this. . . Judge Merchan did not put the defendant in jail for any of his gag violations. Gag orders generally and this gag order specifically are legal and constitutional. The gag order simply disallows intimidating or threatening the jurors or the witnesses or the judge or the prosecutors. This is done to preserve the integrity of the court proceedings. Not all speech is legal and protected speech. Perjury is speech. Yet, it is not legal protected speech. The defendant violated the gag order ten times. If almost any other defendant had violated a gag order in a similar case, then that defendant would have found themselves in jail by the fourth incident. I can't imagine that a fifth violation would not have led to thirty days in jail for almost any other defendant. Had Judge Merchan sought to act unfairly, he certainly would have put the defendant in jail for at least some of the violations of the gag order. . . They have claimed that this was novel and, therefore, should not have been brought forward. . . Joe Scarborough and a few others appear to be of the view that the case should not have been brought forward. One of the reasons why this position is held seems to be that this is a novel application of the law. Those who believe this should not have been brought forward underestimate the importance of the case. After the Hollywood Access tape, the Trump Campaign was in a free fall. At least 34 Republicans in Congress called for the defendant to drop out of the 2016 presidential election. Cohen paid Stormy Daniels two weeks prior to the election. Donald Trump won 46.1% of the national popular vote. He won the electoral college vote by about 80,000 votes. If a little more than 80,000 votes were distributed in the right amounts in right states for Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then she would have won Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. If news of this encounter in detail has been widely spread in the last two weeks of the 2016 presidential election, then it is difficult to believe that it would not have altered who won Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Therefore, concealing this information from the voters very likely changed the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. This alone makes it sufficiently important to bring forward for prosecution. . . Furthermore, the question must be asked, "If anybody else had been the defendant, would this case have been brought forward?" To my mind, the answer to this question is yes. There are 34 felonies that are charged here. The defendant clearly falsified business records in order to conceal another crime, specifically a campaign finance law violation. The law simply says that it is an E felony to falsify business records in order to conceal another crime. . . The heart of this case is falsifying business records in order to conceal another crime. It doesn't specify that the other crime must be a state crime. The intent is to prevent business records from being falsified in order to conceal other crimes. The law is there to discourage people from falsifying business records to conceal other crimes and there is no indication that the law doesn't want to discourage federal crimes. There is no hint that the law thinks that falsifying business records to conceal state crimes is wrong but falsifying business records to conceal federal crimes is okay. There is no evidence that the law was intended to only apply to state crimes and not apply to federal crimes or election related crimes. . . The claim that this is "novel" is silly and not made by serious people. There are arguably infinite potential iterations of crimes that business records could be falsified to conceal. Each iteration could be found to be unique in some way. Why would we want it to be okay to falsify business records to conceal federal crimes or to conceal election rated crimes? Why would the lawmakers think that it would be wrong to falsify business records to conceal state crimes but okay to conceal federal or election related crimes? This makes no sense. In Manhattan in New York state, the Manhattan District Attorney prosecutes falsifying business records as an E felony every week. With this amount of dispositive evidence and the fact that this crime very likely altered who won the 2016 presidential election, I cannot imagine that any other potential defendants having taken the same actions and with the same amount of decisive and dispositive evidence against them would not have been prosecuted. . . The defense weakened their own case. They weakened their case by putting Robert Costello on the witness stand. Their witness' disrespect of the judge by commenting extemporaneously without permission on the judge's rulings and sighs and attempts to stare the judge down hurt their case. This "witness" brought zero value to the proceedings or towards the case that the defense should have sought to build. It is better to not bring any witnesses and allow the jury to believe that you could have brought strong witnesses if you had wanted to, then to bring a weak and disrespectful witness without value. . . They weakened their likelihood of a successful verdict by allowing their client to disrespect the judge, the jury, the witnesses, and the entire trial itself, as well as the gag order violations. They weakened their case by violating the rules of the court. They weakened their case by making a claim that they could not substantiate, namely that the defendant did not have sex with Stormy Daniels. They weakened their case by saying that the Hollywood Access tape revelation did not pose an almost existential threat to the defendant's candidacy when 34 Republicans in Congress called for the defendant to drop out. They had a poor case on the evidence and the law. Still, however, they had "beyond a reasonable doubt" on their side. They could have brought a better case. It is on defense counsel and the defendant that they did not. It appears to me to be the case that the defense and the defendant's actions and choices taken as a whole actually helped the prosecution bring the jury to beyond a reasonable doubt. . . It is true that the defense is not obligated to present an alternative narrative. However, in this case, based upon the evidence, the only rational and coherent narrative that is consistent with the facts and the evidence is the prosecution's narrative. No other rational and coherent narrative consistent with the evidence seems possible. In such a situation, the defense actually does need to show some way that it is possible that the prosecution's narrative is flawed and to hint towards at least some alternative to the narrative that the prosecution. . . They claim that this was almost exclusively based upon a lying, convicted felon. This is not true. Even if you could make some part of Michael Cohen's testimony appear to be false, Donald Trump clearly reimbursed him and the prosecution's narrative still must be true. Almost every significant part of Michael Cohen's testimony was substantiated by either evidence on exhibit or by the testimony of other witnesses. . . David Pecker was one of the two principals involved in the "catch and kill" scheme and Donald Trump was the other. David Pecker testified under oath that Michael Cohen did not have any authority to spend money on behalf of Donald Trump. David Pecker testified under oath that the defendant's concern was to protect the candidacy of the defendant, not to spare Melania's feelings. . . Hope Hicks testified under oath that Michael Cohen had no authority to spend money on behalf of the defendant and that the defendant's campaign was in crisis mode after the Hollywood Access tape. . . People's exhibit 35 is a bank receipt of Michael Cohen wiring Stormy Daniels' attorney, Keith Davidson, $130,000. It also has the handwriting of Allen Weisselberg. A man who has known Allen Weisselberg for 35 years at their place of employment and who has read Allen Weisselberg's handwriting for 35 years testified under oath that the handwriting on this bank receipt of Michael Cohen wiring Keith Davidson. Everything in the quotation marks below was handwritten by Allen Weisselberg: "$130,000" , "plus $50,000" , "paid to Red Finch for tech services", "$180,000", "grossed up to $360,000" , "and bonus $60,000", "$420,000", and "$420,000/12 =$35,000" . . This document, people's exhibit 35, proves that Michael Cohen wired $130,000 to Stormy Daniels. Now this $130,000 was from the equity in the home that he, his wife, and his children live in. There is no way that he puts up the home that he, his wife, and his children live in without assurance from Donald Trump that he would be reimbursed. Furthermore, there is no way that Donald Trump pays $420,000 to Michael Cohen for Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels without asking why it increased so dramatically. All of the checks and other financial instruments going to Michael Cohen for $35,000 ultimately came from Donald Trump's money and it is illogical to separate some of these $35,000 payments to Michael Cohen from others when they are clearly explained by the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization on this document in his handwriting. The words "grossed up to $360,000" are damning in the extreme. How do we reasonably explain why this repayment has to be grossed up other than Cohen was being reimbursed for his campaign contribution which they disguised as income and because of that, Cohen was going to have to pay taxes on that and since it was a favor to Trump, protecting his candidacy, then Trump should cover the taxes ? This is the only reasonable explanation of P-35. P-35 . . . 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