Expect lawyers to set the tone in Trump’s hush money trial with dramatic, possibly explosive, opening arguments
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Apparently Trump can’t stop farting during trial …
…possibly explosive, opening arguments
Well there you have it.
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And no one is showing up. Hopefully, they’re getting tired of him.
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Does a sustained objection to the opening arguments count as explosive?
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Am I the only immature 60 year old that giggles everytime a reporter says Pecker?
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Trump does have someone, wearing a printer, following him around and printing out the “good stuff” for him, so who knows.
They should use a related account for that, like The Mouth of Trump.
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“Hey! Don’t lump me in with those shitheads!”
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Prosecutors Have Handwritten Notes of Trump Hush Money Scheme: ‘He Wrote All of It Down??’
Wups!
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Obligs:
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Here’s a law professor saying in the NY Times that the prosecution’s case is weak, and poorly focused.
Any legal eagles here who think he’s making sense, or not? @danimagoo ?
The Bragg Case Against Trump Is a Historic Mistake
In part:
A recent conversation with Jeffrey Cohen, a friend, Boston College law professor and former prosecutor, made me think that the case could turn out to be more legitimate than I had originally thought. The reason has to do with those allegedly falsified business records: Most of them were entered in early 2017, generally before Mr. Trump filed his Federal Election Commission report that summer. Mr. Trump may have foreseen an investigation into his campaign, leading to its financial records. Mr. Trump may have falsely recorded these internal records before the F.E.C. filing as consciously part of the same fraud: to create a consistent paper trail and to hide intent to violate federal election laws, or defraud the F.E.C.
In short: It’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up.
Looking at the case in this way might address concerns about state jurisdiction. In this scenario, Mr. Trump arguably intended to deceive state investigators, too. State investigators could find these inconsistencies and alert federal agencies. Prosecutors could argue that New York State agencies have an interest in detecting conspiracies to defraud federal entities; they might also have a plausible answer to significant questions about whether New York State has jurisdiction or whether this stretch of a state business filing law is pre-empted by federal law.
However, this explanation is a novel interpretation with many significant legal problems. And none of the Manhattan D.A.’s filings or today’s opening statement even hint at this approach.
Instead of a theory of defrauding state regulators, Mr. Bragg has adopted a weak theory of “election interference,” and Justice Juan Merchan described the case, in his summary of it during jury selection, as an allegation of falsifying business records “to conceal an agreement with others to unlawfully influence the 2016 election.”
This case is still an embarrassment of prosecutorial ethics and apparent selective prosecution. Nevertheless, each side should have its day in court. If convicted, Mr. Trump can fight many other days — and perhaps win — in appellate courts. But if Monday’s opening is a preview of exaggerated allegations, imprecise legal theories and persistently unaddressed problems, the prosecutors might not win a conviction at all.
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I don’t know about the rest of the country, but in MD bringing a phone into the court (much less using it) is a no-no.
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I was just going to post the same thing. 
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Apparently in NYC you can have it, but it’s supposed to be turned off. In the courtrooms I’ve been in you couldn’t have it at all.
If the judge just had the bailiff take his phone at the start of each session he would probably die of a stroke by the end of the day, saving the country loads of money on trials.
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They collect phones from people entering the courthouse in Philadelphia.
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I’m not going to pretend to understand all the legal issues involved well enough to critique Shugerman’s analysis. I think there probably are some novel legal arguments in this case, but that doesn’t mean it’s not valid. We’ll just have to see as the case progresses and the prosecution builds its arguments.
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