Political theater. If anything, this will help Trump and possibly give him a boast in his own party.

Oh, this is interesting. By the same reasoning, would a grand jury indict companies who pay former employees they fired not to speak ill of them?

I'm sure he'll have a chance to plead guilty.

Yes... but it takes a global pandemic at exactly the right time. That doesn't change his support, but it does get people off the couch who might otherwise have decided that Both Sides Are Bad.

Other than that most news is Heads I Win Tails You Lose. Any publicity is good publicity when it puts you in front of cameras to cast aspersions on your opponents.

There is no such thing as bad publicity.

Ignoring him and letting him yell at clouds. But they couldn’t help themselves. They’ve seen massive losses in the polls and figured they’d drag the guy out as they did ok last time against him. I think this will backfire though.

No publicity at all.

ignoring him?

> Isn't this the kind of thinking they had back in 2015, which resulted in Trump winning?

No, I don’t think so. Trump was actually the weakest general election candidate of the major Republicans, what resulted in Trump winning was institutional power in the Democratic Party aligning betwern a candidate that was, equally clearly, the weakest general election candidate of the major Democratic contenders, and whose negatives were much firmer than Trump’s were as a relative political cipher.

Also, Democrats didn't get Trump nominated, a Republican nomination system designed to build sipport for the early leader by providing disproportional delegate majority’s to the magnitude of popular victory—a system designed to favor the pick of the institutional party and cut the knees of “insurgent” campaigns—did that, because the institutional powerbase couldn’t unite behind a candidate.

Were Trump to be nominated in 2024, he will face the same problem as in 2020—he won’t be running against Hillary Clinton.

I don't agree, even when the large majority dropped out, all but one didn't have a double digit polling percentage.

In the end it was Ted Cruz with 22%, so you can assume most of the no-trumpers coalesced behind him (because he was one of the few non-dynasties).

Even that is miniscule. The 3rd R (when there were 3 remaining) had 6.5% at their peak...

Trump remained the clear majority, maintaining a 75% majority until the end.

Without the law applying to all, there is no law.

The fact that we've come this far -- with all that Trump has done -- and are now only getting to what equates to a grain of sand in the grand scheme of all that he has managed to pull off... that tells you a lot. We've been playing with fire for a long time. If this isn't just the start of charges, we're in a lot of trouble.

I understand this is a revised case, with a new legal theory. Public opinion matters, the case has to be sufficient enough to go after a leading candidate for president.

so lots of questions like this will come up:

What does the state of NY have anything to do with enforcing federal election laws?

How is paying hush money a crime, when it hasn't been before?

How can it be an illegal Campaign contribution, when Trump was financing his own campaign?

7 year old case, how isn't this past statue of limitations?

The State's witness is a self-confessed liar, how can his testimony be sufficient.

Judging comments from republicans on Twitter "this is a political prosecution, from a biased Soros backed prosecutor"

Selective prosecution to try to sway an election was rejected once by voters after when Bill Clinton was impeached for his affair. So this will not directly boost Democrat's chances, might even make Donald a martyr. But would make sense if the strategy was to split the vote on the right.

Trump being in legal trouble is the carrot that got DeSantis to run. The problem is if DeSanits defeats Trump in the primary, he can't win in the general precisely because he defeated Trump. Trump has too many supporters that will never switch sides.

Banks collapse. Weakening of the dollar. Former American president indicted. Plots to pause and inhibit AI technologies development through petition. Never ending rain and gloom on the west coast. School shootings.

I am not one for conspiracy but it really does not seem like the tides are moving in the United States favor right now.

Why does every day feel like we are getting closer to some kind of tipping point? Into what I don’t know, but I’m hoping we don’t get to a point where there’s no going back.

It is hard not to read this as politically motivated. A lot of this crowd tends to lean excessively left, but I would urge you to be aware of the broader geopolitical considerations of what is at hand here.

I remember helicopters flying back and forth when the riots broke out, kept me up. Will I be watching Civil War across the border? I'm getting the feeling that things are going too far, and sensible people let the crazies take over. Feels like a setup for DeSantis to run, while keeping Trump in legal limbo.

The argument for what makes it a bad precedent is that it means incumbent parties will use it to prosecute their opposition. If the best you can do is jail your opponents to keep them from running, that's not representation, it's just a war for control of a weapon. I think he will gain unexpected support from some principled moderates as a result.

There is a streak of nihilism in the tactics used against this former president, and it has become an attrition game where winning means being the last one disqualified for cheating or the only one left not in jail. As though they think it's only organized crime when you lose. Comedian Duncan Trussel quipped the other day that politics has become, "an Olympics for narcisistic sociopaths," and that's a pretty good characterization. I'm not American and I can't say I'm neutral, but I do think that the malice this indictment demonstrates is weakness, and that's a fundamentally un-american sentiment that will repel a lot of reasonable people. I have acquaintences who will treat it as a betrayal, but what I believe is that Americans are better than this. Poignant that we live in a time where that could be so unforgivable.

You would think a topic like this would be somewhat lower ranked in a tech-oriented forum but it seems even those of us who are technically inclined cant evade the pull of politics.

As side note, heres my 2 cents:

This is extremely dangerous and unprecedented. Its a long standing practice common law tradition to refrain from prosecuting political leaders unless a serious crime is involved (Prosecutorial discretion).

Ignore Trump, he'll likely win or worse-case get a misdemeanour. This just changed the whole game, the judicial branch just got weaponised as political tool.

Unless somebody puts a conclusive stop to this nonsense, things are about to get very ugly. This is the kind of thing you see from third world countries with corrupt/unstable institutions.

1. The FEC/DOJ elected not to pursue the case in 2018. 2. Cohen's attorneys produced a letter saying Cohen was not reimbursed for the $130K 3. Stormy Daniels attorneys produced a letter denying that an affair ever occurred. 4. North Carolina failed to convict John Edwards in 2012 of a similar charge, though with actual campaign funds. 5. Bill Clinton settled Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit in 1998, while a president for $850K. 6. Law professors from Turley, Desrchowitz, both liberals, have stated there's no case here. 7. Bragg himself had previously declined to pursue these charges. 8. Bragg routinely does not pursue charges against major crimes. 9. Hillary Clinton, Joe & Hunter Biden and a host of other shady political figures have not been indicted and in some cases, not even investigated for far more serious offenses. 10. This confirms in the mind of Trump supporters as well as to the average man on the street that there are two systems of justice, one for the left and one for the rest. 11. This will not end well for Bragg nor the country. It's bound to ignite a response from Republican AGs in some states.

Welcome to the mess created by the democrat party and there Big Tech/media axis.

This seems like an obvious call to civil war when we jail an ex-president who is the frontrunner for the next election. Jailing a person who could as likely as not be be supported by a majority of voters for the presidency would probably be the single most anti-democratic act to ever occur in the US. I never thought we could outdo secret trials, but here we are, doing a speedrun into total collapse.

I'm just astounded that the centrist blob thinks that they can get away with this utilizing a largely right-wing military, an extremely right-wing police force, and a extremely well-armed and numerous right-wing element of the population. It's madness. Maybe (most likely) the lords of surveillance and and propaganda have a better idea of the country's pulse and and potential reaction than I do. Maybe the incompetents in the Biden Admin aren't running the show, and the intelligence agencies are fully and competently in control.

If some African, Central Asian or South American country arrested the presidential frontrunner for paying a prostitute not to mention that he patronized her, everyone would recognize it as a country about to fall into violent anarchy. It's sad that in the clouds our suburban upper-middle class have their heads in, there apparently aren't any mirrors.

If you believe in democracy, you hate this. If you believe in the version of the "rule of law" being bandied around that insists that law occupies some abstract space above the will of the deplorable population, a place ruled by angels that resemble the Warren Court and were educated at Harvard, Yale, or small private liberal arts colleges in the northeast - I think you may be absolutely blindsided in the coming months.

edit: somehow, corporations got the unlimited ability to bribe politicians and political parties, but campaign finance laws can be warped to cover this shit.

I think this is unfortunate because it cheapens American democracy even further in the eyes of adversaries who want nothing more than to mock us on the world stage. Whatever your view of the balance between the need to enforce laws vs. keeping national politics out of law enforcement: From a foreign policy point of view, it's a catastrophe.

There are three classes of countries, as I see it, that indict or jail leaders out-of-power in the opposition. (1) dictatorships like Myanmar (2) quasi-dictatorships acting under a veil of democracy, like Brazil (3) places on the brink of civil rupture, like Israel.

To say that this was intended by the Constitution of a breakaway American Republic is mad, because no sane English colonist would have chosen to renounce the crown if they'd known an idiot like Donald J Trump would be President 200 years later. Of course power should be held to account! As many people here have said, Presidents that committed war crimes would be a better target for prosecution. Or Trump's own crimes in office would be.

This prosecution under these auspices and for these reasons places us (Americans) squarely in the realm of third world semi-democracies.

I don't know if anyone has brought this up, but I hope Joe Biden will be wise enough to immediately issue Trump a pardon and bring this to a close. If Trump is indicted again for something serious, like insurrection, that would be a different matter. It's not possible to divide politics from law in a case where the defendant has a rabid political following and was the President of the country (as insane as that seems). Biden needs to pardon him right away.

Spare me AP fact checkers. Folks here need to be far more skeptical of “authorities”. It doesn’t matter if she recanted. It is a factual statement that her law firm released the letter. Nor are any of the others inaccurate. As I said, hating Trump is one thing. Corrupting the system to harass political opponents is another.

> we're also entirely comfortable with letting 9 in 10 get away to preserve a high standard of doubt (blackstone's ratio).

All this tells me is that this is could be the 1 in 10. We don't know yet.

> which undermines trust in it even more surely than letting a politician get away with a parking ticket or paperwork discrepancy.

Are you certain that's what's occurring here? The implication at the moment is there's a felonies involved. Why are we assuming that Trump is being accused to committing no crimes larger than a parking ticket?

It seems to me that there's an general assumption (not saying it's your assumption) that all politicians are lairs and corrupt and criminals and that's the norm. I think that's an incredibly sad state of affairs and it needs to change. If the justice department wants to start taking shots at politicians who have committed felonies with ironclad cases (we don't know if that's the case here), I say fire away. I don't care what team they represent.

Everyone is currently diminishing the coming unsealing with the idea that somehow it's going to be that Trump jaywalked twice. We don't know that's the case and it would be ridiculous for NY to be taking swings at him for that. If that proves to be the case I'll be vocally against it, but for now I'm assuming that those pressing charges are halfway competent.

State sovereignty. The federal president can't pardon state charges.

It's also probably not possible to pardon oneself. For federal charges the VP would have to do so (while sitting as acting president).

> Think about all the deductions you fudged on your taxes

To be clear - absolutely none. This is a way to normalize deviant behavior by assuming everyone does it. Not everyone does. Many do, but that doesn't make it right.

> Impeachment is our recourse for a corrupt president and that ship has sailed.

He's no longer president, he's just a citizen. Keep in mind, if the rumors are true, these are crimes he committed before he became president. Is the argument here that once someone is president they are forever immune to prosecution?

> If he weren't Donald Trump, would he be getting charged for this?

Yes. Michael Cohen went to jail for this already.

The thing about coups is they require groundwork. Trump hasn't done any of it. Support of military leadership is pretty key, for obvious reasons.

They can attempt a coup regardless. It'll just end up being an embarrassing disaster, which is pretty much what happened on Jan 6th.

I'll take twice impeached and likely only not convicted of the second impeachment by way of McConnell running the clock out then claiming that as a technicality as to why they couldn't proceed.

That's the value of the rule of law for you.

Law means anything if its applied equally to all sides. Biased applications of law, does not mean anything.

Nuremberg Trials were political: We humiliated and destroyed the Nazi's for loosing and killing 6 million jews. Nothing wrong with it but nothing lawful about it either.

If Nuremberg Trials were lawful, then we should have put US generals on trial for indiscriminately burning Tokyo, Osaka, Nagasaki killing millions (including small children). I don't see how this is any different from the holocaust except that its close to 700k dead vs 6 million in holocaust. If you think this numerical difference gives complete immunity to US soldiers for targeting civilians, I'm really interested in your moral philosophy.

We should also have put most of Russian Army on trial for massacring most of the German Army and a large chunk of their population (Close to 10 million). Arguably the charges would be much lower since most law allow killing of soldiers, however without soldiers it was still close to a million civilians killed.

Thinking that Nuremberg trials wasn't just a political show that was arguable necessary to maintain peace, but was instead pursuing some ephemeral Universal Justice is being deluded

> "If a cop follows you for 500 miles, you’re going to get a ticket."

There's a lot of nuance here. Again, we don't know whats in the indictment, but the 500 laws I break today probably are going to be minor or non-felonies. This isn't a matter of "well everyone breaks the law", this is a matter of "some people break major laws and they aren't being held accountable".

> For example, something as simple and normal as taking some work docs home or discussing work with a spouse could lead to breaking serious federal laws.

And that's why intent is included when considering whether someone has broken the law.

> Clinton's private email server is a perfect example of this, she committed a clear crime here but Comey chose to not prosecute.

And I believe that if there was a case that could have been brought against Clinton there should have been. I don't think that's a get out of jail card for others, I think that was a failure of justice. I wouldn't have had one moment of poor sleep over her going to jail.

> We are witnessing a departure from practices established centuries ago in common law tradition.

That tradition has led to a place where obvious criminality isn't punished. There appears to be no respect for the law from the leadership. If this is a departure, it's a good one.

> she committed a clear crime here

False.

https://archive.is/FM1US

> “Instances of classified information being deliberately transmitted via unclassified email were the rare exception and resulted in adjudicated security violations. There was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/18/state-department-hi...

> “While there were some instances of classified information being inappropriately introduced into an unclassified system in furtherance of expedience, by and large, the individuals interviewed were aware of security policies and did their best to implement them in their operations,” the report said.

(Not who you responded to)

Spiro Agnew was felonious, so there is some precedent. He did plead however. The courts are frequently already seen as weaponized, for legislative purposes at least. The grand jury system isn't seen that way though, and I have trouble seeing how it would be twisted to be so.

The key is "as the standard of prosecution".

They could've still prosecuted her and gave her a slap on the wrist. This is what they would've done to anybody a level or two beneath her but Comey set a new precedent that the standard to prosecute would be intent.

This is why they can't prosecute trump for the files at Mara-lago, besides the (very reaosnable) argument that he was the president so be definition anything he takes home should be deemed unclassified, Comey set the precedent of intent so if they cant prove intent they cant prosecute.

Something interesting, number of corrupt US presidents:

GOP

Warren Warding, Teapot OIL reserve scandal

Richard Nixon, Watergate which was funded by illegal Corp political funds which were money laundered through Mexican banks

Donald Trump, Alledged money laundering to fund hush money to porn star, alledge russian money in Apartment sales via Netherlands anonyomous corps, etc.

I cannot seem to find any factual stuff on corrupt Democratic Presidents, aha aha while the Electoral College act was inspired by the Civil War events including the only time Democrats attempted voter fraud none of the elected Democrat presidents were involved in that effort.

No surprise that the amount of ignorance in this thread is breathtaking.

I am going to post a mildly unpopular opinion on what it actually means.

In a word: nothing.

Regardless of how you see Trump, he is, and has been basically since he became President, the presumptive nominee of the Republican party with remaining candidates hoping to take him down. With all that in mind, what does this indictment actually mean in terms of possible penalty?

In a word: nothing.

Felon can still run for POTUS spot. There is a reason for that too along the lines of "well, you don't want current political party to just make up shit willy-nilly".

All this before we even get to the substance of the actual transgression, which, to me at least, is on about the same level as Bill Clinton's charge ( and arguably, his was worse depending on deeply you want to discuss it -- because contrary to some comedians, it was not just about a bj ).

So who benefits?

Trump. Media ( good circus equals good ratings ). The guy who will be running the circus will make a name for himself.

And.. that is it. I am not even sure why I am taking this as stoically as I am. Maybe the over the top happiness displayed on other social media made me hesitate.

FWIW, I am all about 'no one is above the law', but, I think, anyone on this forum can easily point to instances where that is not exactly axiomatic lately. And I think you will note my restraint in not pointing out any names for the sake of trying to keep this post semi-neutral in tone.

Now.. note that they are getting him on some relatively small stuff. All that stuff about Russia, nuclear secrets raid, running bs charity, being peed on.. none of that panned out in a way that touched Trump. And that is the last card to play.

You would think they would get him at least on something better to put on the news. They are getting him on a legal technicality that he will shrug off the same way he shrugged off not paying taxes.

And this? This will only make believers more adamant and it does not in any way damage Trump. This is democrats saying:

"We don't know how, but by golly we are gonna lose this one!"

You gotta laugh man. You gotta. Otherwise you will start crying.

Let us assume, for the sake of discussion, that he is guilty of this crime. Should we ignore it? If we further acknowledge that he is a nitwit without an inkling of knowledge about history, respect for democracy or the United States unless it aligns with his aggrandizement, then is this not like trying to nail Al Capone for tax fraud?

Are their supposedly intelligent people on this forum who truly believe Donald Trump to be a patriotic American, holding the interests of the country above the interests of himself?

It’s about time that there are consequences for a man who took over the USA on a platform of essentially denying that he could ever face consequences.

Let the wheels of justice turn.

As the saying goes: "A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich". Still big news...I'll just wait and see if the charges stick.

Biden pardons Trump.

Outrage mitigated. Base can’t rage.

Biden easily wins re-election.

I'm generally cynical about party politics, but this takes the cake.

Perhaps if other recent elites were prosecuted for lying the United States into wars or openly advocating for torture, I would have a bit more patience for prosecuting Trump's bad bedroom behavior.

I am reminded of Clinton's Lewinsky scandal. Although I was very young at the time, it seemed so trivial in comparison to the magnitude of the office. The next administration went on to destabilize the Middle East under false pretenses. Where was the equivalent outrage for, "Lying to congress" ?

The president is largely a figurehead and a politician foremost. There's nothing honest or reputable about the profession. They could be uncharitably described as professional liars. Their sexual peccadilloes are of no interest to me. The obsession with their bedroom activities seems totally dysfunctional. These people should not be idolized or presented as a standard of behavior in any regard, much less for their sex lives.

Hard not to see this as yet another "The Emperor Has No Clothes" moment for party politics and US democracy. Outstanding issues remain, such as the existing wars, new wars and serious economic issues. Given this context, under what standard is it relevant how Mr. Trump paid a sex worker?

I wish the best for the US and the world at large, but this is just insane. For those somnambulists who are under the influence of this illusion, for those who think this is a rational endeavor which is not symptomatic of a much larger dysfunction - Please, I implore you to take a step back and examine the bigger picture. Consider a brief glance in the mirror as well.

Many interesting posts here. One thing I wonder, is if they're trying to use this case as a precedent for further/additional criminal charges. If you prove one, then the subsequent charges become easier to indict for. Makes making subpoenas easier to request in a court of law.

Remember, a Grand Jury indicted John Edwards, a vice-Presidential candidate, for essentially the same thing Trump is being accused of -- that is using campaign funds to hide an affair.

Prior to Edward's indictment he was thought be the future of the democratic party, if Edwards was convicted on all counts he faced up the 30 years in prison, he beat the charges though -- a rarity in federal prosecutions.

So there is precedent for indictments for this particular crime, not that this should matter, in a republic everyone is subject to the same law and jurisprudence.

LegalEagle has quite a few videos on the various investigations into Trump, his organization, and his associates if you're curious about process: https://www.youtube.com/@LegalEagle/search?query=grand%20jur...

He'll probably have a video out on this soon.

Pretty weak case. Is this really what they go after Trump for? Not sure this emboldens the belief in the rule of law either way, as this is clearly politically motivated.

I think this post should be removed now that most people have had a chance to see it or atleast discussion should be stopped. HN shouldn't be a political platform.

Inciting a legion of goons to attack the White House is one thing, but paying hush money to a porn star is on a whole new level; that just can't be ignored. No siree.

There's a lot of questions I think to what extent politicians (or appointed government offcials) should be accountable when they leave office.

I think the poster child for this is Henry Kissenger.

http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/04/22/uk.kissinger/...

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0326306/

Perhaps this is a concerted, organized legal strategy that Georgia, NYC and the Feds have organized.

Watching this play out from abroad, it looks like a political prosecution. Not a good look for the US.

Biden should pardon him if he gets convicted. Would do wonders for the unity of our country.

Sounds like we will know the specific charges on Tuesday when Trump turns himself in.

It's like handing out speeding tickets at a racetrack.

agnostic non political comment based on logic:

Possible the arrest comes to thwart presidential nomination?

Perhaps. There would also be justifiable outrage by reasonable people.

Pardoning Trump would continue the example set by Gerald Ford in pardoning Nixon.

"Helping the country heal" seems hollow to me. To use a few metaphors:

1. Physical healing can't properly happen until the foreign object is cleared and infection removed from the body.

2. Mental healing doesn't fully happen until person comes to terms with what's happened. Burying the trauma is a risky time-bomb of a "solution".

If injustice goes unpunished or unaddressed, victims typically don't have closure. They lose confidence in the rule of law. Some take it into their own hands.

Large portions of the American public have been traumatized by Trump's behavior. We are seeking justice.

And any temporary comfort from pardoning Trump would be undermined by the uneven application of justice.

I believe that since these are state charges, the pardon would need to come from the governor of New York.

I could see that happening for this charge. In the scheme of things, paying off a sex worker is a petty transgression. Many will have done worse at some point. Showing forgiveness will be a win for everyone.

But if one of the insurrection prosecutions makes it up - then it's hard to see it being pardoned. "Petty" is not a word that springs to mind when describing the events of Jan 6th.

Interesting. This could be a power play for Biden if he can arrange it. The problem is that Biden is unfit to be president even today, what to speak for a second term. He is hanging on by a very thin thread.

One can hope, but doubtful.

Braggs ignored many democrats advice on this and went rogue.

Currently Trump is devisive candidate for republican party. Ironically dems would benefit if he is around and party is fractured.

I can't speak to your other accusation, but I don't think these are written by ChatGPT - unless they are throwing in intentional spelling mistakes:

"besides the (very reaosnable) argument that he was the president so be definition anything he takes home should be deemed unclassified"

Edit: Though I see they claim that in their profile. Troll account's be trolling I guess.

in 2015/6 The GOP field didnt know what do with Trump and for the most part only half attacked him thinking he was a side show who would burn out. He also had no political baggage and no prominent court cases

Now he as alienated a lots of people, he lost an election, facing multiple court cases. He will have at least one or two R candidates who will directly attack him. He will have to fight 'wars' on multiple fronts. Plus he is 8 years older than when he first started running. Closer to 80 than 70.

Is it possible he would have won nomination? Yes but I think was less likely and slipping away from him.

The bad thing for Trump might not be the indictment but that it didn't happen in December 2023.

> It's about him paying money to a porn star not to talk about their affair?

No. It isn't.

> That's not a crime

Also not what he did.

> Now I can see how they can find some stuff in there to make SOMETHING stick

So you called it a weak case. Despite not seeing the 34 charges and severely misunderstanding the basic facts of the situation?

Maybe its not a weak case and you just do not know about it?

Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen paid 130,000 dollars to a pornstar to hush about sex she had with Trump in 2006 while Melania was pregnant. He did this weeks before the election. This can be considered campaign financing violation, similar to what Clinton did with the Steele Dossier. Despite this, he lied about it, and a number of other charges were discovered. So he pleaded guilty and got a 6 year ruling.

During this trial he admitted Trump told him to pay that money, this opened the investigation into Trump's involvement. The first discovery was that Trump had paid Cohen with money from his business to give him back the 130,000$. That is misclassification of business files to commit a crime, which is a felony, the investigation fo said felony opened up a ton of documentation into Trump's finances and business. The DA got access to Trumps taxes in 2020, and after over 2 years of investigation are now presenting 34 charges, all of which the jury found substancial evidence to indict.

What started it, a misdemeanor of paying off someone to not make you look bad right before an election, opened up the investigation into the entire trove of potentially illegal business fillings. Some of which appear to be felonies.

Lets see when the case is unsealead if it's so weak, but it is not looking good.

I heard they were going to charge him for painting his house? That's not a crime. What's next, charging him for changing a lightbulb?

Oh, that's not what he's being charged with? They don't typically charge high profile cases on a whim for things that aren't a crime? Nevertheless. What's up with the U.S. justice system? No, like what's UP with it!? Haha. What are the basics, and what's an attorney? Why do they wear those suits? If THAT were a crime, we'd ALL be in jail, haha.

Oh wait, what point AM I trying to make?

Your first paragraph is correct. Your second probably is as well, but it's not this case.

This is a state prosecutor. In the US system, state prosecutors can’t charge federal crimes, only state ones.

Unlike some other countries-here in Australia, state prosecutors can charge federal crimes and federal prosecutors can charge state ones. Australia doesn’t have the hard separation between state and federal legal systems that the US has

Yes, so it's more important he face justice

I think it might be more like a business expense report when you travel. If I'm on a business trip and get a coffee, that's a business expense because I'm traveling for the purposes of work. If I'm working from home and go get a coffee, that's not a business expense. Replace business expense with campaign expense and there are likely rules about what a campaign can pay for and what it can't as well as rules around using personal money for campaign expenses, subverting the necessary disclosure rules.

I read a headline just a bit ago that there were 34 counts in the indictment so I'm guessing what they found spans more than a single transaction.

According to which "political experts"? He got hammered with the Access Hollywood tapes. You can easily make a case that he had an incentive to not repeat that experience. The proximity to the election and the distance to the actual event is just to damning.

He also doesn't have a history of hush money payments, but rather openly admitting, even inventing scandals about his love life (he claimed he was dating Madonna ffs). So why all of a sudden would he pay hush money and try to cover up the hush money in an illegal scheme? Nothing to do with the election a few days away? Really?

> It's [a] weak case

Without knowing the evidence presented to the grand jury, nor the charges on the indictment, it's hard to judge the strength or weakness of the prosecution's case again the man.

> If they couldn't get anything on Trump for J6, then they have nothing, and it's all witch hunts here

"They" are different prosecutors in different jurisdictions investigating different potential crimes. I don't see how it's possible to conclude that if evidence is lacking in one or more cases, that it's categorically improbable for this man to have committed crimes relative to any and all cases. In essence, you are claiming that lacking evidence of a causal connection to the events of January 6, we are to conclude that any criminal investigations involving this man in unrelated matters must likewise be baseless. This is illogical.

> “Half” is an obscenely generous estimation.

It is actually low by 6%, if you read “disagrees withe the decision not to recommend charging her with a crime” as equalling “believes she should be arrested” (though I suppose it is theoretically possible to think the FBI should have recommended charges but the DoJ should still not have charged, or to not understand that arrest is a natural consequence of criminal charges.)

https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/11/politics/hillary-clinton-fbi-...

>being convicted of a felony doesn't prevent you from running for public office or the office of President

The vast majority of american democracy relies on "norms" and "the public will do the right thing" and "surely they will only elect people who deserve it"

> doesn't prevent you from running for public office

For the vast majority of elected offices, one of the most important qualifications is "registered to vote in the district you are going to represent". Most offices have some age requirement (which might be as simple as "old enough to register to vote") and extremely few had some occupational requirement (like District Attorney has a law degree/license requirement, but Sheriff has no such requirement). When I ran for office in Colorado, failing to be registered to vote in the district you represent was the fastest and most automatic way of getting thrown out of office: no trial, no impeachment, just out you go.

The requirements for President are listed in the Constitution. Getting on the ballot in each state is harder as each state has different requirements.

> being convicted of a felony doesn't prevent you from running for public office

This depends on the state. Being convicted of a felony in Florida bars you from running for public office or voting in the state (until granted clemency). A conviction in Georgia would similarly bar Trump from voting in Florida, but not one in New York (which does not disenfranchise felons).

But yes, it doesn't affect his ability to run for federal office, even if it would make it hard for him to campaign from jail.

> So that suggests that these moves are mainly about public opinion?

You know, we also have this thing in the Western world called "the rule of law". It's this really weird idea that when someone breaks the law, they should be punished for it, no matter how powerful or well-liked they are.

But NY can’t charge for that felony. It’s an absurd combination and nothing like it has ever been brought.

It reeks of a targeted campaign, well because it is. It’s why the DA was elected and exactly what he said he would do. So that’s really not a good look, no matter who it’s against.

Actually... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/31/hillary-clin...

A more reasonable conclusion is that there's incredible resistance to prosecuting former presidents. He's the first, and he's not the first president who has committed a crime.

Are (ex-)presidents above the law?

Another reasonable conclusion is that more complex or serious crimes take more time to investigate and prosecute.

There's a lot we don't know, and I would caution you against drawing "the only reasonable conclusion" from extremely limited evidence.

He certainly didn't start sleeping with hot women only after deciding to run for president, but he absolutely did make a payoff to someone he [allegedly] slept with ten years earlier during the middle of his campaign. Hard to argue the timing is unrelated to campaign objectives, even in the likely event the Trump Organization paid hush money to other people related to other disputes or allegations long before Trump established himself as a political figure,

Considering he's a serial adulterer it might not be hard to show intent if this is the only case he tried to hush in this manner. If this is the only instance in which he committed fraud to hide the payment it might set an important timeline link between his campaign and the case.

Since the affair happened in 2006, I strongly doubt he went back in time to sleep with a porn star.

He’s the first former President to be indicted. There’s no way for him to not be relevant.

They need to start ignoring the leading GOP candidate who actively conspired to overthrow the election and just received a criminal indictment -- a first ever in this nation's history?

I'm not sure if you're intentionally being selective here, but I'll assume good intent.

GP goes on to say:

> There's clearly an element of selective prosecution here, regardless of whether the charge is valid. To make a martyr of Trump over small time crimes is not going to be good for the country in the end.

Their point is quite specifically _not_ whataboutism. They use another example to point to what they believe to be selective prosecution, not to ask "why not proscute the others who did this?".

> It’s just Whataboutism. What the DNC did or did not do is entirely irrelevant to the case, because the DNC is not who was standing before the grand jury.

No it is not. The DNC was not trying to hide something about their private personal life which would not have had a material affect on the election. She was not paid until the month before the election. There was so much crap that had been spewed about Trump by then, this would have been a drop in the sea. The DNC was trying to actively trying harm an opposing candidate which I would say is far worse.

I agree, and the justice system certainly should care. I can't blame anyone else for no longer caring, though.

Thanks for your curious conversation. This is what Hacker News is all about.

I found this [0] to be interesting, however, because I'm not well versed in law, I'm still unclear on a lot. Maybe a real lawyer could weigh in?

[0] https://www.justsecurity.org/85745/survey-of-prosecutions-fo...

> So the most salacious parts of the story are not what the crime is.

It’s funny how so many people think less of this crime because the misappropriated campaign funds where used for something so redicules, compared to if it had been just plainly stolen or used to buy a luxury car or something like that.

Is it possible that this would be simply an opening to gain further investigative access? Like how Al Capone was caught for tax issues?

Hillary Clinton: Charged with $113,000 for breaking campaign finance law.

Obama: Charged with $375,000 for breaking campaign finance law.

Regardless of how you vote, this is a political stunt and witch hunt. Next Biden will be indicted when he leaves office, then the next opponent, and so on…

This is an extremely dangerous precedence that will do nothing but fuel both sides.

No Trump fan but this is more political/media theater B.S. and brought on by all his many deep pocketed enemies. He surely has tons due to his awful mouth (shut it and do your job like Biden does for the people or Bush did or Obama).

Nothing will happen to him just more lame reality TV type drama that gets ratings.

As other commenters have pointed out, the actual indictment is sealed, so we won't find out the concrete charges until he's arraigned.

I've recently served on a jury for a criminal trial, so I've learned some things about the process that courtroom dramas did not teach me.

One: stacked charges (in this case, 30+) can indicate repeat offenses of the same crime / crimes on separate occasions (usually denoted as separate dates). I do not think this is simply a matter of a single hush money payout (or two, as has been reported in the news). I would not be surprised if there are 10 or more distinct events in play. edit: Note that the jury can render separate verdicts for each charge if desired.

Two: the grand jury merely decides whether there's enough evidence to bring this to trial. The standard of evidence for a grand jury is much lower than the actual trial jury.

Three: this is more theoretical because I'd be surprised if this happens, but the defendant in any criminal proceeding is more than entitled to neither testify on his own behalf, and the defense is not required to call any witnesses to the stand, as the presumption is that Trump is innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof lies with the prosecution.

Four: I'm going to paraphrase the judge in my case slightly, but "beyond an unreasonable doubt does not mean beyond any possible doubt. There is always going to be some shred of doubt. Beyond an unreasonable doubt means that you have a moral conviction that the defendant committed the alleged crimes."

> it sounds very technical

That's totally expected, as is the case for even the most mundane-seeming laws. The jury is not expected to have a legal background. The judge will instruct them regarding the points of the law (along with definitions of legal terms), and in particular provide criteria that must be met (sometimes with alternatives, e.g. direct vs constructive possession) in order to find the defendant guilty of a crime. https://nycourts.gov/judges/cji/2-PenalLaw/175/175.10.pdf is probably pretty similar to what the jury might expect to see.

As for intent being hard to prove: you are approximately never going to have direct evidence regarding intent. The prosecution can try to establish intent through circumstantial evidence from which the jury can make a reasonable inference. Again, paraphrasing the judge: if you see someone come into the courtroom with wet clothes and shaking water off an umbrella, you can infer that it was raining. Similarly, if the prosecution establishes that Trump took specific actions that could not be reasonably interpreted in a different way other than being made intentionally, or that there were too many of these unlikely occurrences for it to be coincidental, then the jury may use that to establish intent. Further, note that ignorance of the law is not a defense.

You can bet that the prosecution's case is going to center around providing evidence to directly prove those points, regardless of any narrative the lawyers on either side want to spin. At least in our case, we were instructed only to use evidence as presented in exhibits and per witness testimony. Any of the words of the lawyers (questioning, or even opening statements / closing arguments) were not allowed to be considered. The closing arguments are essentially suggestions re: how to view the evidence.

One last note: you cited that a class E felony in NY has a mandatory minimum of 1 year. Even if Trump is convicted of 30 class E felonies, those can be served concurrently, so theoretically the judge could hand down a sentence of 1 year prison time if he so desired. I think that's highly unlikely, but it is possible.

To me this also pales on comparison to investment benefits legislature seems to enjoy a little too much. This is not the core problem of corrupt politics.

I'm probably wrong, but google indicates statute of limitations for misdemeanors is only 2 years in New York. Curious how this ties into things, the stormy daniels fiasco is what 5+ years ago? Surely there is a felony charge in there?

Just the statute of limitation should have made any judge laugh.

It's the justice system of New York state that's on trial, not Trump.

The punctuated green site from yesteryear had a special moderation carve-out for funny comments distinct from the insightful contributors to keep things on track and interesting. But the parent poster dignifies neither and is better deserving of an Onion headline IMHO.

>> I've scrolled through the top ~10 or so comments

>> I'm not a lawyer and it's hard to parse the above.

>> Overall this seems like a weak comment to me.

Actually it does.

If we want to hold people accountable, then the same charges should have been brought against Clinton and Obama.

This is a stunt. Nothing more, nothing less.

I believe Bragg probably knows what he's doing, but the charge against Cohen isn't a good argument.

Cohen really got a raw deal from the prosecutor and basically got threatened with more charges, and his wife getting charged, unless he pleads guilty within a day or so. That's why the quality of the individual charges in that plea deal can't be taken for granted.

> Cohen has already served time for this crime.

No, he hasn't. He pled guilty to seven unrelated financial charges and to one charge related to the payment to Stormy Daniels: making an excessive campaign contribution.

That last charge doesn't apply to Trump, who is allowed to contribute as much as he wants to his own campaign.

And Cohen's plea tells us nothing about whether recording the payment as "legal expenses" is a crime.

That's correct. I mistyped, sorry!

> I think public figures (especially politicians) should be held to a higher standard than mere-mortals; but many seem to believe the opposite.

I think people should be seen as equals before the law. Having one set of standards[law] for one group and a different set for another group is antithetical to rule of law which is purportedly a common American value FWIW.

> It's clearly a crime

What, exactly, is "clearly a crime"?

The accounting issue is at worst a misdemeanor, unless the DA can show that the payment to SD was a campaign finance violation.

But if it was "clearly" a campaign finance violation, why haven't federal prosecutors charged him with that?

Bragg is a motivated prosecutor trying to find a way to prosecute Trump for a charge he has no jurisdiction over, while the prosecutors who do have jurisdiction don't think it's worth prosecuting.

And that's dangerous. Prosecutions should not be motivated by politics.

Yeah I don't understand why so many people seem to be against this just because it's unlikely it will be raised to a felony or connected to other crimes.

Isn't it fine if this just hits Trump with a small fine or 3 days in jail or something? A fair punishment for a misdemeanor would be fine with me for this case. That's like the whole point of justice, that even the former president should have to follow the fine details.

In my state, our Democrat governor was accused of being a tyrant because of some minor paperwork she didn't do during emergency covid meetings. She still paid the fine because she committed the "crime" (procedural violation?) and that's how it should be. Politicians should not be immune to the little stuff. If they are speeding, they should get a ticket. If they shoplift, they should face a fine. If they forget to report a W2 to the IRS, they should get a pleasant letter telling them their mistake and they owe a few hundred dollars.

I consider that a GOOD thing

My concern isn't that this case is being prosecuted, but that all the stronger cases aren't. Sure, breaking campaign finance laws is bad and should be prosecuted, but he tried to overthrow the government! He had tons of classified documents in his basement and refused to return them. I truly do not understand why he hasn't been arrested for those two. They're more serious crimes, and there's plenty of evidence.

It's well understood that Cohen was Trump's fixer, so I don't think that'll be that big a hurdle.

> I think he'd have a tough job convincing people that he arranged to pay someone in the middle of an election campaign in 2016 not to talk about something that happened in 2006 without any expectation of it having any impact upon his campaign

You must have not seen much of the 2016 election crap then. It was pretty clear that it would not have any impact on his campaign by the time she was paid in October. So much crap was said about him by then, it would have been a small side story.

It has a negative political impact upon his chosen party. The truth of the crimes are irrelevant. If Trump were to plead guilty — and given his notoriously stupid outbursts he may — it wouldn’t matter. Only party matters, not guilt or innocence.

While technically true, and is, in my opinion, one way to avoid jailing political enemies just to take them off the ballot, there's a reason candidates do a lot of rallies while they're campaigning. If a candidate is actually in jail, they'll legally be on the ballot, but they'll face a very steep uphill battle for the practical needs of a campaign.

Correct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs

> did Trump funnel the payment through Michael Cohen with the intent to conceal it from campaign finance disclosure transparency

but if Trump paid directly himself, it wouldn't violate campaign finance laws? Because there is no campaign finance limit on Trump himself.

That said, they still have to prove "Ergo, it's a campaign expense" - any individual is motivated to protect their reputation aside from campaigns.

Yeah, that's 100% him paying his own hush money. Your lawyer is often an extension of you in that respect - that's why a "power of attorney" document is called that. As long as it flows through agents with that kind of close arrangement, the path the money takes doesn't matter - it's coming straight from the client. For example, my patent lawyer pays for my fees at the PTAB and then puts them on my monthly bill, but puts my name (or my corporation's) down on the form as the person who paid the fee.

Another commenter suggested that the real crime was that the expense was named incorrectly on the campaign's books, which makes more sense to me but also seems kind of tenuous.

Seems like a pretty thin theory for such an unprecedented case. (I mean. Imagine if the campaign HAD paid for it!)

I’m all for accountability and rule of law. But I’d hope the grand jury has something a little bit better than just this.

Do explain. As far as I understand the problem is that Cohen paid for the hush money, so it was essentially a campaign contribution that was not reported.

The Obama comparison doesn't hold water. Those were civil penalties for time to report donations. Trump is being charged criminally with felonies for intentionally hiding hush money payments in legal payments from the campaign (although we don't know what all the charges are yet).

https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/08/22/election-law-violatio...

Bragg campaigned on arresting Trump.

Yes. Dems were never going to, for example, indict Trump on selling US policy to the Saudis, that’s a key political-racket revenue source.

At the very least we have to concede that investigation and likelihood of prosecution is proportional to the noise that is made in the media and by vocal voices. It's a thousand tiny little decisions that affect the direction on the aggregate.

I'm trying to keep this comment impartial. But I want to note that right now there is a huge belief that the media and companies and the wider "acceptable" social narrative are biased against a lot of the core beliefs that people on the right align to. I too hold that belief, and I've yet to see sufficient proof to convince me otherwise.

You combine these two wide points, and I'd argue that we should sympathize with those people and not call them "crazy conspiratists" for trying to shed light on this. It's actually a difficult to prove and isolate, second-order type of conclusion.

It's an interesting phenomenon which is perfectly fine for intellectual curiosity, and there are plenty of comments in this thread relating to it that way. And of course there are also plenty of commenters bashing each other with partisan clubs. In that sense you are right. You're exaggerating the bias in the thread, though. For example the top subthread says "looks like a weak case" and was heavily upvoted.

Exactly

The “how is this related to HN?” is the most boring category of comment on HN. If it wasn’t of interest to our demo and was mostly producing flamewars it would be quickly flagged off the frontpage.

We don’t need heavy handed moderation to determine what’s relevant to HN, like Reddit pretends it needs. The community does a good job and the mods step in when necessary.

And if HN occasionally doesn’t flag stuff and it bothers you then don’t click on it. We don’t always get it right.

Europe isn't any different, just the things being argued about.

But no, back in those days this board was absolutely dominated by ancaps and other libertarian types. The socialists and other progressives only really started getting active in the aftermath of Occupy Wall Street. Like any other causeheads, they tirelessly fill these boards with their messaging. The only thing that they really come together to agree on is "fuck the poor". You see it whenever posts about homelessness, zoning or rent regulation pop up.

Lectures are fun though. At least here in the United States, we're so serious about bigotry that even a statement that can be misinterpreted will destroy your career. Then Europeans deride us for being a divided, racist country...meanwhile all across Europe you have major political parties getting large double digit percentages of the vote running on hateful anti-immigrant platforms, major political candidates pulling stunts like burning the Quran as a party demonstration and football players getting racist expletives shouted at them during their matches. And we haven't started talking about Asia yet. That gets even more special.

So please, tell me more about how this is limited to the United States.

There are usually a few threads discussing major or controversial political news. Dang is good about collapsing them and keeping things isolated there. It is pretty easy to avoid these threads and they fall off the front page quickly. I don’t think they add much to HN, but I like to skim them as this community’s take is the least biased.

There was a busy front page thread for each of Obama's election wins, Trump's First, and Biden's win. There were numerous busy threads on the Obama campaign's use of technology leading up to his first election. I'd say it's working out okay ~15 years into the experiment of unkilling certain historically significant political threads.

From Trump v. Vance; Justice Alito in the dissenting opinion:

> ... And the district attorney should set out why he finds it necessary that the records be produced now as opposed to when the President leaves office. At argument, respondent’s counsel told us that his office’s concern is the expiration of the statute of limitations,11 but there are potential solutions to that problem. Even if New York law does not automatically suspend the statute of limitations for prosecuting a President until he leaves office,12 it may be possible to eliminate the problem by waiver.13 And if the prosecutor’s statute-of-limitations concerns relate to parties other than the President, he should be required to spell that out.

> ...

> 12: See N. Y. Crim. Proc. Law Ann. §30.10(4)(a) (West 2010) (statute tolled when defendant outside the jurisdiction); see also People v. Knobel, 94 N. Y. 2d 226, 230, 723 N. E. 2d 550, 552 (1999) (explaining New York rule for tolling the limitations period when a defendant is “continuously outside” the State and concluding that “all periods of a day or more that a nonresident defendant is out-of-State should be totaled and toll the Statute of Limitations”).

I think it ensures he’ll be the nominee and also ensures he will lose the general if he doesn’t do a deal in the other indictments to drop out.

Your mistake is thinking a disastrous president that lost re-election somehow understands the modal voter. He doesn’t even understand the modal voter in swing states.

He was born in NYC and lived there until college. I think either of which would make it safe to call his "hometown", unless something specific about NYC (its size?) precludes people from calling it a hometown.

You could find something about almost anyone. See “two felonies a day”

My question was something which he would normally be prosecuted for, but wasn’t on account of being president.

> evaded prosecution for on account of being president

What's the status quo?

Not prosecuting Trump would be populist choice to appease his voters.

Also, I really dont think that "presidents should be entitled to commit any crime, because no one can prosecute them" is a good legal system to have. That would attract even more criminals to high politics, because it would make them immune to crimes.

Not being convicted by your own party is a pretty low bar to pass.

Nope, just the most criminal.

Prominent Republicans (like John Bolton) have claimed that Democrats are intentionally targetting Trump to increase his popularity with his base so that he'll definately become the nominee and then be easy to beat.

Whether you believe that or not, its wild that we're in such a position that claims like that could be made.

Yes, he can be prosecuted for all 3 simultaneously. They are different cases, in different jurisdictions which will be handled by different prosecutors and different court systems.

This is why you should only break one law at a time.

Unfortunately a lot of people are HAPPY he did those things

Also of note is that Edwards was acquitted and the Biden justice department, the previous NY district attorney, and even Bragg himself previously, has already rejected going after Trump for FEC violations that are apparently at the heart of how he’s constructed a felony charge.

It's the opposite, using personal funds is the crime because it should have been a disclosed campaign contribution. Trump also went through several extra steps of having his lawyer and CFO create shell companies and then funnel payments and kickbacks through them falsifying documents all along the way. I'm assuming the DA of a city can't bring FEC violation charges. The charges will be about all the lying and possibly tax evasion. Things his lawyer and CFO have already been convicted of.

Yeah it’s hard to look at something like the Rod Blagojevich saga and then look back at Trump and not immediately wonder what the hell is going on here.

They very clearly have the capability to coordinate the entire media apparatus, law enforcement, etc to cuff a sitting Governor and quickly send him to a federal pit and down the memory hole for essentially the exact same sort of quid pro quo that was underpinning the first Trump impeachment.

Trump isn’t Phoenix Wright, he’s only still a free man because the Blob either can’t come to a consensus on “Blago’ing” him - or else the constant “The walls are closing in on Drumpf THIS time” drama is serving a larger purpose.

I don't think the Manhattan DA has direct access to the full capacity of US intelligence agencies to use against citizens or former presidents.

> how all the forces of the most powerful government in the world and its intelligence agencies, which are the largest, best financed, and since 9/11 least restrained in the world can't prove the liberal claims

It's not the job of all those intelligence agencies to do that. This is a law and order question, which must be handled by the legal system, not the NSA and CIA.

You’re talking about the 76-year-old WWE hall-of-famer who posted upwards of 200 tweets a day despite famously eschewing technology for paper and pencil. There’s nothing fake about this political figure. Or any others, for that matter.

Gold.

The alternative would be for prosecutors to focus their attention proportionally to `severity of crime * prior probability of guilt`. In an ideal world, you'd see Democratic prosecutors going after Democrats and Republicans going after Republicans just as often as the opposite. But I have no clue how to get from our current world to that world.

It's more than that or people wouldn't be charging 90+ year olds who were concentration camp prison guards in their teens and early 20s.

Which is why they don't have the final say; the verdict is made by the trial jury after hearing from both sides.

They're getting him on the technicality that it was not him but one of his corporations that made the payment.

Only thing that matters: what is said under oath.

The rest is marketing/BS.

Potentially angering millions of people is not a compelling reason to not pursue criminals through your legal system, of course.

> He literally won half the country ...

Well that's not true, no matter how you slice it, or which election you look at.

In neither did he win more than 50% of the vote (2016 it was 46.1% of voters, compared to 48.2% who voted for Hillary - and in 2020 it was 46.8%, compared to the 51.3% for Joe).

And while that sounds tantalisingly close enough to half, it overlooks the fact that in those two elections, respectively, only 59% and then 70% of eligible voters (or 54% and 55% of age-and-citizenship-eligible-but-not-registered) actually voted.

So that means that you're looking at less than half of roughly 2/3's of the voting population -- a demographic that in turn is only around 3/4 of 'the country'.

He literally, therefore, won about 20% of US citizens, or 25% of eligible voters.

> ... his rallies ALWAYS have huge turnsouts.

That's neither true or compelling. Garry Glitter and Elvis used to have huge crowds.

> He's beloved by his base in quasi-religious way, even across the globe. Italy had parade with a "God-emperor Trump".

This wasn't the loving display of affection that you make it out to be:

> The official description of the statue says that the float was created by artist Fabrizio Galli, whose past sculptures included satirical depictions of Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin.

Source: https://time.com/5526224/trump-float-italy/

> "God-emperor Trump"

“It’s a joke, but in fact he’s trying to destroy nations with the economy instead of nuclear missiles,” Mr Galli told the Italian media. “This is one of the strongest actions, let’s say, that powerful people like Trump can use.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

The Mafia is also beloved by many and anti-establishment. Al Capone is a good comparison if only for the end up getting caught on something ridiculous part. Of course Trump isn't a gangster, only a grifter, but do you really think someone is confused by this analogy?

Trump and Capone were both indicted. Though to be fair Capone never lost an election and then claimed he didn’t.

> Donald Trump isn't Al Capone

https://www.thewrap.com/donald-trump-twitter-comparing-himse...

> This guy is a Napoleon or Caesar in the making,

Did Napoleon or Caesar also try to overthrow the democratically elected government when they lost the election?

The argument that this is legal was from Bush Jr's office: https://thenewamerican.com/cia-has-program-to-assassinate-us...

Your Wikipedia link makes it seem like an honest mistake. Which would not be a crime, though could have civil penalties if government immunity wasn't involved.

"he was exceptionally criminal so they investigated him a lot more than normal" is a weird thing to use as evidence of political motivation.

As if Trump didn't corruptly use the power of his office to obstruct a lot of those investigations.

Doesn’t stop people like Pence and Lindsey Graham from cynically playing to the crowd by describing as outrageous charges that haven’t been made public yet

of course we do, if they had anything real on trump they would be mandating it be tattooed on the inner eyelid of every single US citizen

If it's the intent and that's what democracy is predicated on but it isn't then why does it matter? The purpose of a system is what it does, not what it was designed to do

Admittedly, I thought I was being concise, but edited my post into a real head-scratcher.

I was thinking along the lines of protections such as presumption of innocence, and burden of proof, as making it hard to convict people. But it does require competent defense to enforce those things.

An example of easy to convict is countries where prominent dissidents are arrested for nebulous "corruption," and basically stand no chance.

same question here...

> Since there is the concept of sealed indictment, why are all the indictments not sealed (or none of them)?

There are a variety of reasons to seal an indictment (which will only remain sealed until the defendant is arrested), one of which os to facilitate arrest and avoid flight, another is to protect information in the indictment for as long as possible, especially if there is information that may be sensitive to ongoing investigations beside that of the person indicted, or if there is concern for the safety of victims/witnesses identified in the indictment.

> I guess this is to preserve the person that is accused

No, it is not. It is mostly to protect against actions of that person or their confederates, not to protect them.

Most indictments are never sealed (if the accused has been arrested on other charges, for example, there isn't much use in trying to keep it secret from the accused), and the ones that are always become unsealed in order to go to trial. There are a number of reasons to file an indictment under seal - ranging from juvenile records to managing flight risks of the accused.

The one that is probably most pertinent in this case has to do with testimony in front of a grand jury: both encouraging it to occur, and preventing it from being tampered with by the accused.

> I am from France and have no stakes nor interest in the political discussion

The impact of U.S. politics goes well beyond its borders.

There was a fairly effective push to dismantle groups linked to Trump's electoral success [0]. They had a similar air of bullshit charges that only became an issue because prosecutors wanted to achieve political ends.

It is weird, but it is likely he is being threatened. If they can get Trump arrested for this, they can certainly put Cohen in jeopardy.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/21/us/mueller-tr...

EDIT Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bannon#2022_New_York_sta... is probably going to fall into the same basket

That wasn't the only crime he pled guilty to. Likely had to plea guilty to all crimes to get his deal.

Cohen was not crime lawyer. And any high-level lawyer will tell you that even them will not represent themselves in a criminal investigation nor are they immune from make false confessions under the pressure of the federal government.

First, extortion would typically be with a threat of violence or destruction, so you are thinking of blackmail.

Second, criminal blackmail excludes legal processes.

Third, she didn't threaten trump, she tried to sell her story after he lied to her about being a contestant on the apprentice.

https://www.scrofanolaw.com/federal-blackmail-and-extortion/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/19/nyregion/trump-stormy-dan...

Gotta start somewhere... the guy who has been identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in this very crime is as good as any.

> some legal experts who were definitely not Trump fans argue that it was not a case they would've brought

Legal experts or not, unless they have seen the evidence (incl witness testimony) and charges their speculation is as good as any internet commenter. I read a headline that there are 34 charges in the indictment, could be many unique ones or it could be one of those things like 34 wire fraud charges because there were 34 transactions from 34 accounts or whatever.

Yes it can. And I know this, because it already happened (the US became a signatory in 2000, but repudiated any intent to ratify in 2002.)

Are there potential circumstances where the US Constitution might conflict with obligations under the Rome Statute? Maybe; that certainly fairly regularly happens in practice with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, but the US has signed and ratified that treaty.

Treaties have an effect similar to a constitutional amendment.

We don’t know yet what he was indicted for exactly.

Clapper did not literally perjure himself in front of Congress. He _absolutely_ did not.

It was impossible for him to do so because he was never testifying under oath.

See: <https://www.c-span.org/video/?311436-1/senate-intelligence-c...> for a recording of what I believe is the Senate hearing to which you are referring.

Also consider the following quote from the Congressional Research Service about how the Senate chooses to place folks under oath:

> By statute, any Senator is authorized to administer the oath to a witness (2 U.S.C. 191). Committee rules commonly allow testimony under oath at the discretion of a committee’s leaders. (In practice, most committees rarely require witnesses to testify under oath at legislative hearings. Sworn testimony is more common at investigative hearings and confirmation hearings.)

(via: <https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RS/98-392>)

Now, the NSA's lawyers absolutely _did_ lie under oath to the Supreme Court.

What happened because of that? Absolutely fuckall.

So, even if Clapper was testifying under oath, I'd expect absolutely nothing would have happened. (Don't forget that this is mostly the same Congress that gave every telecom company that (very, _very_ much illegally) permitted NSA warrantless access to their phone and data networks _retroactive_ immunity from prosecution.)

edit: I missed the DA of Manhattan part so the comment below no longer applies, but I decided to keep it unaltered since we seem to be forgetting history rather quick.

<< On what grounds would the DA of Manhattan have for prosecuting Bush and Cheney?

Is it a real question?

On the off chance it is a real question, I am going to open with Iraq war, associated war crimes[1] and go from there[2] to people who wrote about it rather extensively and have some knowledge of the subject[3].

I am starting to think that there is wisdom in just waiting. Clearly, you can do anything if you let just enough time pass.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War#By_Coalition_forces_a... [2] https://www.youtube.com/embed/TY2DKzastu8?feature=oembed&ena... [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Clark

> Every person in the US is guilty of some baseline level of criminality, and the more “interesting” your life, the more crimes you are likely to have committed.

What's the point of having these laws if they're not enforced?

Yes, yes, and yes. Every little legal infraction should be prosecuted, no matter how small or who you are. If they don't matter or shouldn't matter, the law should be changed; keeping them on the books and selectively enforcing them when it's convenient isn't fair to anyone.

I dont think that is reasonable or fair comparison at all. Bidens treatment of documents was much different then Trumps ... and notably his layers returned documents by themselves upon realizing the issue.

> Until that happens, a norm against criminalizing ex-presidents (except for serious crimes) is a good norm to have.

Funny enough, the framers back then claimed that law applies to presidents too ... and that this is what makes United States special and different then monarchy.

Yes, if you commit a crime, petty or not, rich or poor, you should face a court. If you park in front of a fire hydrant, whether you're a mom picking up her kid or the president, you should get a ticket.

If there is no attempt at equality in the face of the law, then what's the point?

That would be a misdemeanor, not a felony.

The Economist article someone mirrored farther down has the clearest trace of the payments I can find: https://archive.is/0rJIh

Michael Cohen paid Stormy Daniels. The Trump organization reimbursed Michael Cohen. The candidate Trump never declared the payment on his campaigning behalf.

Do you have any links on the specific laws that preclude candidate-directed corporate payments? Haven't seen specific laws in the reporting thus far, although I expect when the charges come out it'll be all over.

Have you ever watched a criminal trial? Some of them are streamed online now. Seriously go watch them, you often get career lawyers commenting on them too, for free.

What someone said publicly can definitely be used and has been used criminal trials.

Bad example to use there because Trump will very possibly be indicted for doing the same, but much worse, in terms of his own classified information!

Yes exactly, otherwise you end up with impotent policemen who are incapable of enforcing the law.

> Despite your disclaimers, this seems to be in bad faith given that “all they’ve got” implies he’ll never be indicted again

I'm sorry, I'll try to reword it to come across differently. My whole question is: Why hasn't he been indicted of bigger/harsher crimes already?

I find it interesting to consider “who would the Democrats most prefer to run against in 2024?”

If the economy is weak, I think they’d rather run against Trump (who has a base that’s fiercely loyal but more narrow) rather than a GOP candidate who will pull the majority of Trump’s base but also a wider swath from the “center” population by hammering on the economy.

If the economy is strong, historically it doesn’t matter much who the incumbent runs against.

> another one of these things that could easily backfire and make him look like a hero

That's Trump's real accomplishment—complain so loudly that the idea of being held accountable for your crimes makes you look like a hero.

*reeks

Is it illegal for the president to lie to Congress and the American people? Other than that, the military adventures were authorized, and Bush was within his Constitutional power to prosecute those military adventures.

Wild what-aboutism. Some other guy probably did crimes, so this guy should be able to also. That would be the clown world.

I prefer my presidents not pay hush money to porn stars

Stick them in the same cell?

Trump's "base" doesn't particularly matter. They'll continue on in denial/spite regardless of what happens. The damage they themselves can do is limited, as long as we have functioning law enforcement.

The only way we're getting out of the larger situation is for Republicans and independents to realize that Trump is/was just another basic grifter capitalizing on frustration with the system. Just because someone is despised by the people at the country club doesn't mean they're your friend. While we're hungry for reform, this doesn't mean that every type of change is a step in the right direction. And despite the suffocating dynamic, there's actually a damn good reason we've come to expect that politicians should be a bit neutered. Ultimately true conservatism for the American status quo that we've come to take for granted, as much as it pains my past self to write that.

What about the rule of law? Isn't it important? Isn't it possible that Trump committed a crime and should be prosecuted?

The grand jury system is a bit of a joke. You've seen how badly prosecutors twist facts and inaccurately frame things during cases. The grand jury is basically that except without anyone disputing anything they say. Only the most inept prosecutors don't get the indictments they want.

> The jury did and voted to indict

I honestly wouldn't put any faith in a jury choosing to indict. As famously once said, you can convince a jury to indict a ham sandwich. I'm waiting to see what the charges actually are and the evidence for them.

(1985 quote)

> In a bid to make prosecutors more accountable for their actions, Chief Judge Sol Wachtler has proposed that the state scrap the grand jury system of bringing criminal indictments.

> Wachtler, who became the state’s top judge earlier this month, said district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that “by and large” they could get them to “indict a ham sandwich.”

To be fair, a lot of the conversation that goes on when these topics come up are around the legal and social ramifications. There was an expectation that he was going to be indicted, and so it's important to think about if that's a good idea, and also weigh the pros and cons.

It's important to hear from politicians, former prosecutors, scholars, historians, and also to get input from people in other countries as well. How would it impact world perception? How would it impact US soft power?

It's also important to think about the civil implications. Could there be riots? Targeted domestic terror attacks against law enforcement (which has happened)? How is law enforcement prepared to handle it?

I think when robust conversations like these happen, it's easier for the public to understand when a prosecutor makes a move. Because it's not the prosecutor's job to explain this to anyone. Some people (even in this thread) really need a civics lesson. Like, people expecting the defense to have a crack at the grand jury, and if they don't then it's somehow a biased process or that due process has been violated. That's just how it works, and Bragg doesn't have to explain that to people. But because we have no other mechanism to do this, it's really the media's role at this point, which is sad, but that's where the conversation happens.

I just want to point out that the last time a similar case was brought was against Cohen for this exact same crime. Cohen was convicted and served time in federal prison. In his trial, Cohen testified that he broke the law at the direction of somebody only referred to in the public disclosures as “Individual 1”. The only plausible person this can be is Donald Trump.

So, regardless of what you think of the case. Leaving out that somebody was already successfully convicted of this exact crime is a significant omission.

We do not know the charges yet of course. The most significant are likely to be campaign finance related with details of falsified records and hush money payments providing supporting evidence of those crimes as much as they are crimes themselves.

>Assuming the charges are limited to the Daniels payment, you're correct. It's a weak case.

CNN, at least, is reporting that he's facing 30 charges. If that's the case, it's probably charges related to the Trump Org's shenanigans that the corp was found guilty of. The organization's indictment had a lot of shady stuff and a lot of stuff that looked like flat out fraud. Lots of criminal looking behavior that plausibly can be directly tied to Trump himself.

> 1. NY paused it in 2020 due to COVID

for some civil cases, not criminal ones: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/governor-cuomo-s-tollin...

> 2. Trump has lived outside of the state for a few years, meaning it's paused

Surely you must be trolling?

I mean gee, all these Ivy League law professors (most of them not being Trump supporters) must not have been aware of that, somehow...

> I quoted the relevant section in another comment ( https://youtu.be/AAZLOygmR78 ).

Your link is wrong, but now I probably know what you watch on youtube.

> I would be sure to make note of who is suggesting that legal approach. The full opinions of the court in that case can be found https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-635_o7jq.pdf

Please make note of it for me, because I don't want to read a 68 page legal opinion just to figure out what you already seem to know.

Indeed, Eugene Debs ran for president while in prison in 1920:

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/debs-received-millio...

Luckily in the US an accused isn't required to prove the absence of a given intent just because a third party believes that intent might have been there.

He never advocated injecting hydrochloric acid.

> if I was dealing with such things I would always record every conversation on some tiny recorder

that would also be illegal though, and could not be used in court as evidence? (Not a lawyer, not legal advice) On the other hand, nowadays it's pretty easy to fake voice recordings. I'm not sure if it can be done in a way that is hard to detect by experts.

They do not, self executing treaties become domestic laws, if these laws are not constitutional then the treaty is pretty much void.

And non self executing treaties are meaningless they pretty much mean that the US government promised something but it is not compelled to do anything about it and there is no mechanism that would require it to comply.

The US constitution is supreme it takes precedence over anything the legislative branch might legislate and any action the executive branch might take.

Alien tort is also not accepted when interpreting the constitution so you literally cannot interpret the constitution from the point of view of international or foreign laws.

Congress is going to make laws and policies based on what people say. People should be much more careful when saying things to congress.

If they're a dime a dozen (I don't think they are), then we should either make sure to provide high visibility instances in order to dissuade others from breaking the law, or we should change the laws if we don't think they are worth enforcing.

Yeah but they weren't being persecuted for obviously political reasons. Usually the ruling class avoids eating their own because they know then that the guillotine can come for them. But in this case, Trump is too much of a danger to the war-machine establishment.

Hillary paid for the Steele Dossier and improperly reported it and was fined for it. They didn't try to press criminal charges against her for that or for mishandling classified emails (also a crime technically).

Did you notice how talk of Trump's crimes related to classified documents disappeared completely after Biden was found with improperly handled classified documents?

It's all theater.

Violations like that are charged all the time. This particular offense was already charged against Trump's lawyer, so it makes sense to charge Trump who directed Trump to do it.

It wasn't just a campaign finance violation. It also was a major financial misstatement, even fraud telling the election bureau, the IRS and state officials this was legal expenses, which it clearly wasn't. There's no way no how one can make the claim "not a big enough deal to charge". Things like that and even more minor get charged all day long. It's just that there is a very long history of Trump and his goons interfering with this charge getting brought and making a much bigger deal about it.

As someone who ran for a state-level elected office, I can tell you that campaign finance violations are not "a dime a dozen".

Trump is a fundamentally different player than Bush or Nixon. They were establishment in times the establishment wasn't nearly as hated as it is now.

This just plays to Trump's strength as the ultimate rebel.

In terms of game theory, this is a very different game than Nixon or Bush. Trump annihilated the Bush Legacy, and is hated by both sides of the establishment.

At least some of the legally problematic reimbursement payments to Cohen happened while he was president.

Doesn't that just give over power to prosecutors to pick who you get to vote for?

On the flip side... England did actually arrest, try and convict the King once. Also did the same to an ex-queen, in Lady Jane Grey. After first having un-queened her, which is also a thing that cannot be done.

The thing about Britain's constitutional arrangements is that there are many things which 'can't' be done, which it turns out simply 'aren't' done.

All good points. A small note though I believe the Queen started paying taxes in exchange for the state’s help rebuilding Windsor caste after the 92 fire. So seems more quid pro quo than something she felt was the right thing to do.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Windsor_Castle_fire

This short article gives a better explanation than I could ever give at this hour of the morning: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/14/what-does-qu...

What is sovereign immunity?

Sovereign immunity is a centuries-old doctrine dictating that the monarch cannot be prosecuted or subject to civil legal action under the law. Its origin lies in doctrine and convention, rather than statute, and there is no law setting out the rules underpinning the concept.

It stems partly from the medieval concept that the monarch is the source of justice, and can therefore do no wrong. It also relies on an argument that because the courts belong to the Queen she cannot be compelled to appear in them, since she would, in effect, be prosecuting herself.

Since at least 1800, the monarch has also had a legally distinct private persona, created to allow them to have independent wealth and property that could be inherited by their children. However, the lines between the two are somewhat blurred, and sovereign immunity has typically been interpreted to apply to both the public and private identities of the monarch.

That the king is above criminal law does not directly dispute the Magna Carta thread of this conversation.

We take it for granted now, but it was a beginning of constitutional order - king and government should follow certain laws and rules for how to run the country. And the UK is after all a constitutional monarchy, no longer at mercy to the whims of an autocratic monarch.

You really think anyone in the royal family has ever done anything because "it would be the right thing to do"?

They had better have some pretty solid evidence aside from his testimony. Building a case around the word of a man convicted of perjury, especially one with a public hatred of the defendant, seems like a profoundly stupid thing to do.

I'll be waiting with my popcorn, because one way or another, this is gonna be good.

A prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. I've been on a grand jury, and the indictment rate is >95% in most cases.

That was also an outrageous and silly charge and representative a failure of the legal system to live up to its ideals of process and fairness. It wasn't especially political though, because by and large there is consensus that being a gangster should be illegal and that Capone was probably a gangster.

Attempting to take a popular political figure out by blatant abuse of the legal abuse is a bit more concerning.