'He wrote all of it down?': Prosecutors claim to have handwritten notes of Trump hush money scheme

[BackAgain]

Much like Biden impeachment inquiry

Not at all.

 

[para bellum]

It of course was fraudulent, as Trump definitely intended to mask the payoff intended to influence the election as a legal expense for his business. You cannot do that. That will be the easy part. That's just the misdemeanor.

Meh, that's Bragg's contention. For you there is only one explanation possible, and that's the one that is least favorable to Trump.

All politicians try to "influence the election". The US Congress has a fund specifically to payoff people who make derogatory accusations against sitting Congresscritters. That's done to shield the person who is being accused from any scrutiny.

Paying an attorney and recording the payment as "legal expenses" is bog-standard bookkeeping notation. I have done the exact same thing, with no intent to conceal that part of the payment was a reimbursement for fees that my attorney paid pursuant to our relationship.

 

[Lesh]

Where is the crime?

These tards think they’re trying the case here.

Nope

And we’ll all have to live with the verdict however it goes but it WILL be settled in a court of law

 

[Man With A Plan]

We have spent a lot of effort trying to discover the predicate crime the DA is relying on for the felony enhancement. The lefties here have made all sorts of nonsensical comments about the obligation of the prosecutor to identify the crime- those comments are just made in ignorance- they didn't know the answer so they pretended it was not required.

The judge ruled on this back in February. His ruling was that the underlying (predicate) crime did not have to be included in the indictment, if the facts presented to the Grand Jury were sufficient to show there was grounds for alleging one, and the defense was provided with a bill of particulars that spelled out the crime alleged.

The ruling identified 3 crimes and eliminated one possibility, I listed those 3 that would be allowed in my post #33.

Yesterday in a sidebar, the prosecution finally identified by statute the primary underlying crime they are alleging- it is NY Election Law 17-152. It states:

"Any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."

So the prosecution's case is that the agreement with Pecker, Cohen, and Trump constitutes a "conspiracy using unlawful means" to promote the election of Trump. Presumably the "unlawful means" is the recording of the payments to Cohen in the accounting system as "legal expenses" and not "hush money", since NDA's are not illegal.

In order to convict, the jury will have to be convinced that Trump was aware that the suppression of the stories was an illegal conspiracy, and that the recording of the payments as legal expenses was intended to hide the agreement with AMI to find and suppress negative stories about Trump.

How did you arrive at the conclusion that suppression of the stories was an illegal conspiracy after admitting in the prior paragraph that NDA's are not illegal? Does calling it "hush money" somehow change it's legality?

 

[Man With A Plan]

Meh, that's Bragg's contention. For you there is only one explanation possible, and that's the one that is least favorable to Trump.

All politicians try to "influence the election". The US Congress has a fund specifically to payoff people who make derogatory accusations against sitting Congresscritters. That's done to shield the person who is being accused from any scrutiny.

Paying an attorney and recording the payment as "legal expenses" is bog-standard bookkeeping notation. I have done the exact same thing, with no intent to conceal that part of the payment was a reimbursement for fees that my attorney paid pursuant to our relationship.

Hillary Clinton did the exact same thing when she was paying for the Steele Dossiers. That went down on the books as "legal fees". Was Richard Steele working as Hillary's attorney? I don't think so. Just one more example of selective prosecution and one more reason any conviction will be tossed on appeal.

 

[Rawley]

Its not a requirement, but it is a very common practice.

These 'retainer payments' came out of nowhere after Cohen attempted to purchase the story rights from AMI for $130,000 and continued until the amount Cohen had paid AMI was returned to Cohen. Exactly $130,000.

Fuck the evidence, huh? Trump paid Cohen $420,000

 

[elektra]

Those were supposed 'monthly retainer checks', as confirmed by the general ledger.

There was no retainer agreement with Michael Cohen. And the fraudulent 'retainer checks' continued for months until the full $130K that Cohen has paid the hush money was repaid to him.

Cohen wasn't being paid for legal services rendered. He was being repaid for the money shunted to Stormy Daniels. Who provided Trump with no legal services. To say nothing of legal 'retainer' services.

Making any citation of 'legal expenses' and 'retainer' fraudulent and false.

according to your link, not a crime

 

[Rawley]

Meh, that's Bragg's contention. For you there is only one explanation possible, and that's the one that is least favorable to Trump.

All politicians try to "influence the election". The US Congress has a fund specifically to payoff people who make derogatory accusations against sitting Congresscritters. That's done to shield the person who is being accused from any scrutiny.

Paying an attorney and recording the payment as "legal expenses" is bog-standard bookkeeping notation. I have done the exact same thing, with no intent to conceal that part of the payment was a reimbursement for fees that my attorney paid pursuant to our relationship.

With every post, these jokers make clear they have zero experience in business. Zero.

 

[para bellum]

How did you arrive at the conclusion that suppression of the stories was an illegal conspiracy after admitting in the prior paragraph that NDA's are not illegal? Does calling it "hush money" somehow change it's legality?

How did you arrive at the conclusion that I had arrived at that conclusion?

I was describing Bragg's theory of the case. Part of that theory is that recording the payments to Cohen as "legal expenses" was evidence that Trump was disguising the payment to Daniels, and that is what makes the payments a "falsification of records with intent to defraud", which is the requirement for the lowest level of the charge (175.05).

The alleged conspiracy to suppress the stories for the purpose of electioneering is what elevates that to a felony (175.10).

That is Bragg's theory in a nutshell.

I think it's a crock of shit. The payments were not fraudulent, and they were recorded as standard bookkeeping notations that every private company uses every day.

 

[Man With A Plan]

How did you arrive at the conclusion that I had arrived at that conclusion?

I was describing Bragg's theory of the case. Part of that theory is that recording the payments to Cohen as "legal expenses" was evidence that Trump was disguising the payment to Daniels, and that is what makes the payments a "falsification of records with intent to defraud", which is the requirement for the lowest level of the charge (175.05).

The alleged conspiracy to suppress the stories for the purpose of electioneering is what elevates that to a felony (175.10).

That is Bragg's theory in a nutshell.

I think it's a crock of shit. The payments were not fraudulent, and they were recorded as standard bookkeeping notations that every private company uses every day.

I apologize Para...I misunderstood your point!

 

[para bellum]

I apologize Para...I misunderstood your point!

No worries, lol.

 

[para bellum]

Hillary Clinton did the exact same thing when she was paying for the Steele Dossiers. That went down on the books as "legal fees". Was Richard Steele working as Hillary's attorney? I don't think so. Just one more example of selective prosecution and one more reason any conviction will be tossed on appeal.

Think you mean Christopher Steele.

The judge denied the motion for dismissal based on selective prosecution for this reason- I shit you not.

He said the illegal payments through Perkins Coie to Fusion GPS were made by the Clinton Campaign, not Clinton herself. She was not charged with falsifying business records because the payments were not something she was personally responsible for.

 

[IDIOCRACY]

So we should weigh your fantasies against your lies?

Which part is a lie?

Crickets....

 

[Man With A Plan]

Think you mean Christopher Steele.

The judge denied the motion for dismissal based on selective prosecution for this reason- I shit you not.

He said the illegal payments through Perkins Coie to Fusion GPS were made by the Clinton Campaign, not Clinton herself. She was not charged with falsifying business records because the payments were not something she was personally responsible for.

That's almost as amusing as the Attorney General stating that he didn't think Hillary Clinton was "sophisticated" enough about how things work in Washington to be charged with destroying evidence with her secret servers and the Blackberries she took a hammer to!
Does anyone really believe that Hillary DIDN'T know all about the smear campaign that she paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for? That's about as believable as the story that Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton just talked about their "grand kids" when they had that secret meeting on the tarmac in Arizona! Now THAT is election interference! The husband (and former President) of the Democratic nominee colluding with the Attorney General to make sure no charges are brought against Hillary in the days leading up to the election! A meeting that led to that unbelievable press conference by James Comey where he let us all know that Hillary Clinton wasn't "sophisticated" when it came to Washington politics!

 

[EvilCat Breath]

The checks are not falsified? The ledger tracking the checks are not falsified. There is no charge showing the Non Disclosure agreement was a crime?

The entire argument in this thread is proven wrong by your link and quote

That is what a number of legal experts say.

 

[elektra]

There is no way to falsify, the checks.

To who
From who
How Much

That is all that goes on a check

 

[berg80]

I'll ask a third and final time to the question you keep deflecting from, what was the proper way for the accountant at the Trump organization to describe the checks written to their lawyer Cohen?

Reimbursement for a hush money payment to keep Daniels' story from being published for the purposes of election interference.

Because Cohen illegally declared the reimbursement as income Trump eventually paid him extra money. Part to pay for the income taxes Cohen would incur and part as a performance bonus for a job well done.

 

[Independentthinker]

A shout out to Big Al for keeping copious records of the hush money payment. The prosecution's case is made a little easier. It kinda makes a mockery of Trump's denial he didn't schtoink Stormy. Sorry Melania, you married an unfaithful pig of a man.

It's all a nothingburger but it sure does get a rise in Dem's jeans. Hush money to squelch information before a political contest has been happening ever since politics was invented but, somehow, just somehow, Trump is the only one charged with a crime for doing it. Hell, Biden squelched information that he had classified documents just before the 2020 election but he's not facing any charges.

 

[Marener]

It's all a nothingburger but it sure does get a rise in Dem's jeans. Hush money to squelch information before a political contest has been happening ever since politics was invented but, somehow, just somehow, Trump is the only one charged with a crime for doing it. Hell, Biden squelched information that he had classified documents just before the 2020 election but he's not facing any charges.

Who else was paying hush money before an election?

 

[Independentthinker]

Who else was paying hush money before an election?

Ummmmmmmmmm, just about everyone, but they were never charged. The following is just presidents, which does not included zillions of others running for office. From NPR, not Fox News:

NATIONAL​

A history of U.S. presidents and hush money payments​

APRIL 5, 20235:05 AM ET

Vanessa Romo

Former President Donald Trump is arraigned in New York on Tuesday over charges of falsifying business records with "intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof." The allegations stem from a scheme to silence an adult film star who said she was having an extramarital affair with Trump. Past presidents have also been accused of making hush money payments.
Seth Wenig/AP
Former President Donald Trump is now the first president in U.S. history to be arraigned on charges of falsifying business records as part of a cover-up of payments to an adult film star with whom he allegedly had an extramarital affair.
Or, a hush money scheme.
It's a concise shorthand for a practice that's sometimes legal: One person tries to persuade another through the use of cash or goods to keep quiet about something unsavory.
Trump may be the most recent U.S president implicated in hush money scandal — but he's not the first.
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In terms of its origins, most scholars attribute the two-word phrase to Richard Steele, a politician, playwright and journalist who often wrote about morality and how people should conduct themselves in respectable society.
"I expect hush-money to be regularly sent for every folly or vice any one commits in this whole town," Steele wrote in a 1709 article about London.
The term has been in linked to U.S. presidents for nearly as long as the United States of America has been a country.

Thomas Jefferson​

The country's third president, Thomas Jefferson, wrote about his part in an alleged hush money scheme to his friend, James Monroe.
In the 1801 letter, Jefferson said he'd given money "from time to time" to journalist James Thomson Callender, "a man of genius suffering under persecution."
But Callender was now telling people that the gifts were actually payments for writing articles defaming John Adams and George Washington as well as others exposing an extramarital affair involving Alexander Hamilton.
According to Jefferson, Callender told a messenger he received the money "not as a charity but a due, in fact as hushmoney."
The move infuriated Jefferson, and he swore never to send Callender any more money.
"Such a misconstruction of my charities puts an end to them for ever," he wrote to Monroe.
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About a year later, Callender wrote an article publicizing Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman on his estate, and the existence of their children.

HISTORY​

2018: Jefferson's Monticello makes room for Sally Hemings​

Warren Harding​

A batch of letters released by the Library of Congress revealed that the 29th president, Warren Harding, was embroiled in at least two hush money agreements.
"To escape ruin in the eyes of those who have trusted me in public life — where I have never betrayed — I will, if you demand it as the price — retire at the end of my term, and never come back to [Marion, Ohio] to reside," Harding wrote to Carrie Fulton Phillips, his longtime lover, in a 31-page letter dated Feb. 2, 1920.
"I will avoid any elevation but retire completely to obscurity."

THE TWO-WAY​

2015: Warren Harding, we hardly knew ye​

But, he added, if Fulton Phillips believed he might "be more helpful by having a public position and influence ... I will pay you $5,000 per year in March each year, so long as I am in public service."
He added: "I will, I must abide by your decision."
Ultimately, he paid her that money to stay silent about their affair while he was president from 1921 to 1923. In today's dollars, that would be the equivalent of nearly $260,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculator.
Harding also made regular payments to woman named Nan Britton, with whom he had a child.
In a tell-all book called The President's Daughter, Britton wrote about her yearslong relationship with Harding, which she said lasted until he died. She provided details about coming to an agreement with the politician to have her sister and brother-in-law adopt the child.
"I produced a small piece of paper on which my sister had entered necessary monthly expenses," Britton wrote. "He agreed to the amount, saying if such an arrangement would make me happier than would an arrangement such as he had suggested ... he was agreeable to it."
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Richard Nixon​

FRESH AIR​

Watergate, The Tapes & The Fall Of The Nixon White House​

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On March 21, 1973, Richard Nixon — president No. 37 — was recorded discussing hush money payments related to the Watergate cover-up — although whether the phrase was actually uttered on some of the recordings was central to several legal battles.
He and his lawyer, John Dean III, are heard talking about collecting money to pay off the men who broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Washington, D.C., Watergate Office Building.
The recordings ultimately led to Nixon's resignation — making him the only president in U.S. history to leave the office in such disgrace.

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And then there is this:

Former presidential candidate John Edwards was accused of funneling nearly $1 million in donor contributions to support his pregnant mistress and criminally charged with a campaign finance violation. Here's how the case played out.

A grand jury indicted Donald Trump, likely over a "hush-money" payment to Stormy Daniels. A similar case unfolded in 2011 against John Edwards.

www.businessinsider.com

"It's not illegal to be a pig," Brett Kappel, a Washington campaign finance expert, told the Washington Post at the time. "Is what Edwards did slimy? Absolutely. Everyone will agree it was reprehensible. But it's not a crime."