ChiGoose

If you’re trying to avoid a cult, I’d suggest avoiding the people whose opinion of their leader never changes no matter what he does…

Truth hurts.

Nah, it’s actually that the criminality of the right at the moment is fairly unprecedented. Simply applying the law as it’s usually applied results in literally hundreds of MAGA people being prosecuted. That then gets spun as bias by grifters and conmen as politicization instead of fairly straightforward enforcement of the law.

“If a very common thing was very common but I, a highly regarded expert had absolutely no clue and no ability to investigate or understand it to the extent that I confused boilerplate language with an assassination order, then why the hell does anyone think I know that the hell I’m doing?” -Julie Kelly, the best and brightest legal mind on the right.

Fun fact: Trump wasn’t charged under the PRA.

What the Trump backers here seem to constantly forget (aside from all that obstruction) is that Trump had the right to the documents while president and his possession of them was illegal as of noon on Inauguration Day 2021. Thankfully for Mr. Trump, the Feds treated him like others who had been in his position and just asked for the documents back. Unfortunately for Mr. Trump, he took Tom Fitton’s advice instead of his attorney and decided to obstruct the Feds, resulting in him being charged.

What’s cool about this is that they charged everyone who obstructed investigations and didn’t charge those who didn’t. Easy peasy!

Shhh! You’re not allowed to look anything up. Just believe the rage baiting talking heads. Biden probably needs the sale from the oil to fund his assassination squads going after Trump.

You put forth people you listen to asking me why they believe what they do even though I don’t have any knowledge of them. I did my best to explain the nuances of this case and why people disagree. You think this makes me a hack. I think it’s pretty clear that you’re not acting in good faith and are just searching for whatever confirms your priors. That, or your just incapable of understanding anything that isn’t black and white. I agree that you are most certainly a hack.

Let me ask you something, and I encourage you to answer honestly. If I posted a long list of legal experts who agreed with me or were even more convinced of Trump’s guilt, would you provide evidence as to why they were wrong? Would you spend time explaining why they are all wrong? Or are you just a hack?

Maybe they haven’t read them. Maybe they are relying on how things work in jurisdictions other than NY. Maybe they know it’ll get them more attention. Maybe they are wishcasting. Why don’t you call them up and ask if the prosecution’s allegations qualify for violation of federal election crimes or tax crimes? The documents clearly identify the charges and also provide the elements for several other crimes. You don’t have to believe that the prosecution is correct to acknowledge that they have documented their case. There are also plenty of legal experts who don’t fall into the bucket that seems so convenient for you.

Nope. Not at all. The crimes are all there in the charging documents. Whether or not the prosecution has proved them is a matter of opinion.

I’m not claiming they are wrong. It’s a matter of opinion built on imperfect information. I believe it is clear what other crimes the prosecution is looking to for the step up. It’s fairly well documented in their charging documents. I believe the weakness of the case is whether or not they successfully convinced the jury of any of the step up crimes. I don’t think they hit it as hard as they should have, leaving doubt about whether not they met their burden.

The charges are literally spelled out. The elements of the step up crimes are also included the charging documents. What you’re focusing on is an interpretation of one of the potential step up charges. To say that we don’t know what Trump is charged with requires one to either ignore the charging documents or to ignore all of the potential step up crimes in favor of a specific interpretation of just one of the charges despite the fact that proof of attempt of literally *any* other crime is sufficient for the step up.

Trump was charged with falsification of business records. That was stepped up from a misdemeanor to a felony based on the idea that it was committed to conceal another crime. Reading through the charging documents, it seems fairly clear they are looking at federal election crimes, state election crimes, and tax crimes. The people you are quoting are very focused on the state election crimes. I think they are pointing out a valid weakness in one of the particular state election laws. To me, it’s been very clear that the easiest hurdle for the step up is federal election law. They got Pxcker to take a deal to avoid prosecution on federal election laws for almost the same facts. The tax law violation is also pretty clear (Pxcker also plead to this) but I don’t think it’d really fly with a jury because it resulted in overpaying taxes.

One of the reasons we have so many lawyers is that the law is often not very clear. Especially when a case gets to the point of a trial: if it was obvious, there likely would have been a settlement to avoid trial. I think a lot of the skepticism of this case comes from an unfamiliarity of NYS law and practice. I was originally fairly skeptical of the case, but as it progressed and I learned more about how these charges have traditionally worked (including against politicians), the case seemed stronger to me. Most national law commentators are federal practitioners and would also be unfamiliar with practice in NYS. Importantly, this trial is not being televised. So at best, people are making their opinions based on what other people are reporting. I try to find a mix of beat reporters who live tweet the case with minimal commentary and compare them to each other to get an idea of what is happening. However, even this leaves a glaring hole since I cannot tell how the jury is reacting at any point. This is especially underscored with Cohen's testimony. He's a problematic witness for the prosecution, which is why they tried to buffer his testimony ahead of time through other witnesses and draw the sting before cross. Did it work? I cannot say. I was not there watching the jury's reactions. That also means that commentary about the case is generally based on reports about the case instead of directly from the courtroom. The margin for error there seems pretty large since it's people giving an opinion based on what someone else is saying happened. If anyone is telling you the jury is "definitely" going to do this or that, it's a good sign that you should ignore them. Ultimately, from what I can tell, the prosecution has put on a very strong case for the misdemeanor falsification charges but the step up to felony isn't quite as strong. They've outlined some of the potential violations of law and motives, but I think they'll need to have a very good closing statement to tie everything together neatly. And even then, it depends on how the jury viewed the witnesses. There are clear laws we can point to that would support the step up, but I do not know if the prosecution has brought the jury along on them. tl;dr: These cases are rarely very clear and very few of us are working with direct knowledge and experience with the practice in Manhattan.

I’d say about the same. I think Brady having a full offseason to prep will improve the offensive scheme but the WR room as it currently stands is a drop off from last year. OC environment: Better WR room: Worse Net: Probably around the same

AMI paid for McDougal and the doorman. It’s why Pe cker, the head of AMI at the time, ended up pleading guilty to campaign finance and tax law violations. You could just listen to a diversity of experts so you aren’t reliant on any one or two to get everything right.

AMI: McDougal and the doorman Trump, through the Trump Org: Daniels

It’s been pretty well covered. It’s not like it’s a secret.

Don’t need insider knowledge. It’s all out in the open: ”Specifically, prosecutors contend, the payments to McDougal, Daniels and the doorman violated federal restrictions on corporate and individual campaign contributions and were meant to conceal damaging information from the voting public.” (PBS)

Well then MSNBC is even dumber than people think since the crimes are all in the charging documents for anyone to read.

Going for entertaining over facts explains quite a lot.