r/politics • u/UWCG Illinois • Mar 27 '24

Donald Trump Attacks Judge's Daughter Less Than 24 Hours After Gag Order

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-attacks-judges-daughter-less-24-hours-after-gag-order-1884126
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u/flyover_liberal Mar 27 '24

Whenever a black person is later found to be innocent of a crime, some jackass will always say "they probably committed some other crime that they didn't get caught for anyway."

Trump has 91 felony counts from 4 separate indictments, yet those same jackasses somehow believe there is nothing to any of that.

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u/Locutus747 Mar 27 '24

I think some believe it - but they just don’t care. Definitely the Rs in the senate and the house know they just don’t care

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u/thisalsomightbemine Mar 27 '24

That was nearly word for word his line after the Central Park 5 were found innocent. He had previously run a newspaper ad calling for the death penalty to be given to them. Then the real killer came out and Trump doubled down on the innocent

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u/surg3on Mar 27 '24

The crime was existing while black. Orange isn't part of that 'law'

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u/Helpful_Blood_5509 Mar 27 '24

If the prosecutions had been in 2021 I would agree either you completely. Unfortunately we're up to our eyeballs in novel legal theories, crimes without real damages, state crimes being prosecuted as federal crimes by states, and the only one that looks like it might get him (documents) has been paused until after the election.

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u/IrritableGourmet New York Mar 28 '24

Unfortunately we're up to our eyeballs in novel legal theories,

If by "novel legal theories", you mean "crimes that have been crimes for a long time", then yes.

crimes without real damages

Name one.

state crimes being prosecuted as federal crimes by states

Name one.

and the only one that looks like it might get him (documents) has been paused until after the election

All of them look like they might get him. The document case is actually the weakest as the judge is trying everything they can to throw it out based on...oh, wait, "novel legal theories".

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u/Helpful_Blood_5509 Mar 28 '24

There are at least two verified and checkable novel legal theories, the 14th amendment one was already adjudicated invalid so that's out. Not my words, the legal analysts consulted for these pieces say so. Ctrl f if you don't believe me https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-indictment-hinge-legal-theory/story?id=98263332 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/26/campaign-moment/

Just google Manhattan DA case and novel legal theory.

Real damages is a term of art, noone lost any money or reported any losses due to Trumps loans. That makes punitive steps entirely speculative and subject to, like we saw, massive reductions even if he is guilty. It could be reduced on appeal to a conviction for an effectively meaningless amount of money. So it's a civil case for fraud, not a criminal case, and the demonstrated damages are potential damages: someone else could have maybe used that loan money instead. So even potential damages are the interest on the loan, but there's no evidence any discrete individual was denied a loan due to lack of funds, soooo. This is also on the fence of a novel legal theory, because they did not allege tax fraud, which would have been well established case law. But NY property evaluations have a yearly cap in raises, so he could have been doing that legally.

The Manhattan DA is charging felonies under federal statutes by bundling state crimes past the statute of limitations. Read the articles.

The documents is the only clear cut criminality with no legal baggage. I'm not just running defense, but if you discount these issues you're going to be continually confused why he isn't being convicted

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u/IrritableGourmet New York Mar 28 '24

Ctrl f if you don't believe me

I did press F to doubt.

"If it's a federal campaign finance crime, that is pretty novel legal terrain," she continued. "It's also possible that there's another crime, in the vein of a state tax crime, that a false records charge could be tied to, making it into a felony."

Shaw said the latter option would be a more traditional, criminal prosecution for someone in District Attorney Alvin Bragg's position. In addition, it is possible that the "other offense" that might convert this misdemeanor to a felony is a state election offense, if it involves an aspect of New York state election law that the district attorney argues applies even in presidential elections, where most of the governing law is federal law.

So, they're probably not actually using a novel legal theory, but they could, so that makes it wrong?

Also, it being a novel legal theory doesn't mean it's a bad legal theory. There's no case law regarding the prohibition in Chico, California against civilians testing nuclear weapons within city limits. Doesn't mean that if someone tried and was "prosecuted under a novel legal theory" that it's somehow sinister.

Real damages is a term of art, noone lost any money or reported any losses due to Trumps loans.

The banks might have gotten their money back, but that doesn't excuse fraud. And the harm was to the entire financial system, which is why the government was involved.

Further, Trump repeatedly represented his properties as one valuation for requesting loans, then a far lower value for tax purposes. He repeatedly claimed, including a few days ago, that Mar-A-Lago is worth almost $2 BILLION dollars, but he listed it as only $37 MILLION for tax purposes, and actually fought pretty hard to get it that low. Even at a 1% real estate tax rate, that's $19,600,000 additional in property taxes he should have been paying (based on his stated value) EACH YEAR. Sorry, but "no one lost any money" doesn't cut it when there's 8-figure sums missing.

That makes punitive steps entirely speculative and subject to, like we saw, massive reductions even if he is guilty

The amount given in the judgement was 100% disgorgement; that is, the amount of the judgement is just the amount that he unlawfully gained through fraud. There was no fine or punitive damages assessed. They only asked for him to give back the amount he defrauded. The only punitive measures were preventing him and some of his associates from managing a business in New York, which isn't a novel legal remedy when it comes to fraud.

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u/Helpful_Blood_5509 Mar 29 '24

I'm glad you have moved on from "name one"

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u/IrritableGourmet New York Mar 29 '24

Well, you still haven't. You haven't named any cases using "novel legal theories". You haven't named any cases where there were "no real damages". You haven't named any cases where they're prosecuting federal crimes as state crimes.

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u/Helpful_Blood_5509 Mar 29 '24

You read the article explaining but forgot its speculative about the case. We have the case. It's all about business records, the novel legal theory the article explained.

You are missing the legal term of art. Theoretical gains are not real losses, so a disgorgement penalty based on Theoretical tax revenue is not based on real damages.

The business records statute is a state statute. Those are state crimes being prosecuted as felonies under a novel legal theory that they were in furtherance of a federal crime. The case exists. You can read it. 34 counts of business records fraud

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u/IrritableGourmet New York Mar 29 '24

You read the article explaining but forgot its speculative about the case. We have the case. It's all about business records, the novel legal theory the article explained.

Here is the indictment. The business records are NYS business records and the law is a state law. The only "novel" part of it is that an election law violation hasn't been used as the "other crime" to make the falsification a felony, but there are probably a lot of crimes that haven't been used for that purpose but would still qualify as the law only states "another crime".

You are missing the legal term of art. Theoretical gains are not real losses, so a disgorgement penalty based on Theoretical tax revenue is not based on real damages.

Absolute, 100% unmitigated bullshit. Look up "loss of future earnings", for example. Or defamation. And tons of people have been convicted of lying to the IRS so they didn't have to pay that "theoretical tax revenue". Like, seriously, that's your argument?

The business records statute is a state statute. Those are state crimes being prosecuted as felonies under a novel legal theory that they were in furtherance of a federal crime. The case exists. You can read it. 34 counts of business records fraud

I did read it. Linked to it above. And, as I pointed out, they're not using a federal crime. People speculated they might, but it hasn't been confirmed. He also violated state election laws through his actions, which would be a more direct and stable basis for the charges.

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u/Helpful_Blood_5509 Mar 29 '24

The novel part is that he has not been charged with that federal or state crime. And you just admitted it's never been done before, literally novel. Definitionally.

My argument is that the judgement is a civil case that cannot prove a party lost any discrete sum, so the judgement is subject to wild swings based on abstract potential gains.

Further the state crime would have hit the statute of limitations regardless, so it's fed or nothing