This ignores that the initial payment was a felony violation of the Federal Elections Campaign Act, as an unreported campaign donation >$25k. It doesn’t matter if it was T****’s money or the T**** Organization’s. And if it was the latter, it was misappropriation of funds by an officer of the company; essentially, embezzlement.
The “cover-up” of knowingly filing false business records violates GAAP and the entire basis of business accounting laws, which T**** as an officer of the company had to read and sign that he read and understood them.
There is simply no excuse for this, and it’s a crime that is routinely enforced for even less egregious offenses.
they had a guy on NPR yesterday, who used to work in the DAs office who dealt with white collar crimes, saying that they do this kind of case all the time… it’s just not normally national news. Once it was a local Democratic official he said.
Here it is…
I know both outlets are problematic, but I’d give NPR a bit more credibility than the NYTs, honestly.
@danimagoo - I’d love to hear your take on this interview, too.
It looks like his expertise is not specifically in white collar crime, but has done a good deal of work on constitutional law? His dissertation and book was on judicial elections.
I don’t know. Would people come to me as an expert in 18th century colonial history? Probably not.
Shugerman also submitted an amicus brief for CREW in the CREW v Trump case a few years ago (the emoluments clause case), so he’s not some right wing Fed Soc asshat, either. He may just be out of his expertise here.
ETA: I would like to listen to that other interview and read more and comment more…but I need to pass. I am actually studying for the bar right now, lol.
“‘America loving protestors should be allowed to protest at the front steps of our courthouses all over the country…’ So there’s donald trump, summoning trump supporters, in Idaho, to go to the courthouse in Boise, stage a biiig protest for him. Or in North Dakota, or in Utah, or Alabama, or Texas, somewhere there’s a vast majority of voters for donald trump. Any courthouse in America - Florida, anywhere - and no one, no one anywhere in the country showed up at any courthouse to protest the criminal prosecution of donald trump.”
I’m starting to wonder if this deafening silence at protest sites is going to hurt his election chances more than the court cases.
It’s like nobody (on that side of the fence) wanted to stand up and say “hey, I’m not so sure the emperor has clothes at all!”
But when asked “everyone who thinks the emperor’s clothes are awesome, meet at the courthouse” and nobody else showing up, that might lead to thoughts that have implications.
“We are not yet seeking an incarceratory penalty," assistant district attorney Chris Conroy said, “But the defendant seems to be angling for that.”
Yup, that’s been the goal since the day TFG started whining about his rights being violated. How can he make another prison album for fundraising if the judge refuses to lock him up for violating orders and rules that apply to everyone else? I’ll bet they’ve had the designs for t-shirts, mugs, and commemorative plates ready for months! Leniency is pushing back the date of 45’s pity party/money grab:
They might wanna pump the breaks on “celebrating” that pyrrhic ‘victory’; 45 has more than one criminal case in the works, and the evidence/findings could be used to bring more. It would be the irony of ironies if out of all that muthafucka’s crimes, it was the misusing campaign funds to pay a porn actress that finally takes him down.
And then of course there’s still always the chance that the constant pressure will cause him to stroke out on the toilet in the middle of writing a tweet…
