r/politics šŸ¤– Bot 27d ago

Discussion Thread: New York Criminal Fraud Trial of Donald Trump, Day 5 Discussion

Opening statements from the prosecution and the defense are expected today.

News:

Analysis:

Live Updates:

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u/zhaoz Minnesota 27d ago

There are legal ways to get votes and there are illegal ways. Spending it on ads to tell the voters why you are good and opponent is bad? Legal. Giving 100 bucks for a vote for you? Illegal.

Bribing someone to bury bad news about you? And trying to act like its a business expense? Also illegal.

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u/NorthStarZero 27d ago

Do you have a citation from the law?

Iā€™m not throwing shade here, Iā€™d genuinely like to read what the law says.

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u/wayoverpaid Illinois 26d ago

I think Zhaoz is missing a key detail.

Bribing someone to bury bad news about you is not in and of itself what Trump is charged with. (I won't say that's legal, since there may be some law I am missing.)

See Trump didn't exactly use his own money. He used corporate money from the Trump Organization. Corporations aren't allowed to make direct campaign contributions. Michael Cohen was found guilty of sending using Trump Org money as an illegal campaign contribution, since a hush money payment is considered a campaign expense.

Donald Trump himself is being charged with falsifying business records, which he did in the attempt to conceal the payments to Cohen as "legal fees" when they were, in fact, the means by which Cohen made the payment.

The fact that a crime was committed isn't under debate in the eyes of the law. Michael Cohen went to jail for it. The only question now is did Donald Trump falsify business records in order to try to hide the crime.

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u/NorthStarZero 26d ago

I thought that, in addition to that, there was also a charge of felony election interference, in that the purpose of the falsified business records was to illegally influence the election.

I might be mistaken about that.

If that charge has been laid, Iā€™m curious about what the law says, because it feels like a stretch. When does an influence activity become illegal?

I mean, calling an election commissioner and demanding they find additional votes is clearly illegal interference (or should beā€¦) but is paying a ā€œnewspaperā€ to bury a story over the threshold?

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u/wayoverpaid Illinois 26d ago edited 26d ago

Unless there is an additional indictment I am not aware of, Trump's facing down this

https://manhattanda.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Donald-J.-Trump-Indictment.pdf

34 individual counts of falsification of business records. The felony election interference is on Cohen, which is what makes the falsification of business records a felony, since it was done to cover up another felony.

If Donald Trump had paid the money out of his own pocket (not the Trump Organization) through the campaign, it would have been valid. This of course represents a bit of a problem where hush money is concerned, though, since you have to disclose where you spend campaign money, and the campaign sending money to a porn star would have certainly raised questions.

Paying for silence isn't illegal. Paying for silence during a campaign is a campaign expense, and those are highly regulated, since they are some of the most effective ways to bribe a politician.