Donald Trump Indicted in New York

[Rogue 9]

The Guardian

Donald Trump indicted over 2016 hush money payment – report

Ex-president denies affair with Stormy Daniels but has admitted directing Michael Cohen to pay Daniels $130,000

Martin Pengelly in New York

Thu 30 Mar 2023 17.35 EDT

Donald Trump has been indicted in New York, over a hush money payment made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

The paper cited four people with knowledge of the matter.

No former US president has ever been criminally indicted. The news is set to shake the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, in which Trump leads most polls.

Trump also faces legal jeopardy over his election subversion and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress; his attempts to overturn the 2020 result in Georgia; his retention of classified records; his business dealings; and a defamation suit arising from an allegation of rape by the writer E Jean Carroll, which Trump denies.

Daniels claims an affair with Trump in 2006. Trump denies the affair but has admitted directing his then lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay Daniels $130,000 for her silence.

Cohen was also revealed to have arranged for $150,000 to be paid to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who claimed to have an affair with Trump.

That payment was made by David Pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid newspaper, which squashed the story.

Trump has admitted reimbursing Cohen with payments the Trump Organization logged as legal expenses.

Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 and was president from 2017 to 2021. News of the payment to Daniels broke in January 2018.

Cohen pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance law, contributing to a three-year prison sentence handed down in December 2018.

Investigations of the Daniels payment have dragged on. Earlier this year, Mark Pomerantz, an experienced New York prosecutor who resigned from Bragg’s team then wrote a book, called the payment a “zombie case” which would not die.

Earlier this month, Cohen testified before the grand jury in the Manhattan hush money case. Hope Hicks and Kellyanne Conway, former White House aides, reportedly spoke to prosecutors, as did Daniels, Pecker and Jeffrey McConney, senior vice-president and controller of the Trump Organization.

Trump did not testify. He denies wrongdoing, claiming the payments represented extortion.

Earlier this week, a Trump lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told MSNBC Trump had simply taken advice from his lawyer, Cohen, which was “not a crime”. Tacopina also said the payments to Cohen were simply “legal fees”.

Trump’s lawyers are expected to seek to delay the case.

Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor in New York, said Trump would in all likelihood not head swiftly to court.

Writing for MSNBC, Weissmann said: “Beyond Trump’s notorious abuse of the legal system by throwing sand in the gears to slow things down, a criminal case takes time.”

He added: “There is no end of motions that can be filed to delay a trial, which could easily cause the litigation to be ongoing during the Republican primary season [in 2024] – something a court could also find is reason to delay any trial date.

“Indeed, even in a more quotidian case, having a trial within a year of indictment would be quick.”

[LadyTevar]

DeSantos is already going spastic on Twitter, calling this politically based.
Gonna really hurt when he has to agree to extradite Trump to NY.

[Ralin]

DeSantos is already going spastic on Twitter, calling this politically based.
Gonna really hurt when he has to agree to extradite Trump to NY.

One, why do you keep calling him DeSantos? Two, what makes you think he would if he's in any way involved in the process?

[Elfdart]

DeSantos is already going spastic on Twitter, calling this politically based.
Gonna really hurt when he has to agree to extradite Trump to NY.

He's claiming he won't cooperate, but DeFascist is a craven little punk so I doubt he wants to risk prosecution for harboring a fugitive.

https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/stat ... 7552778243

[bilateralrope]

If DeSantis does find a way to avoid extraditing Trump*, that still leaves Trump stuck in Florida. Because as soon as he steps into another state, that state could extradite him. That's going to cause him problems.

I've been hearing that Trump wants the perp walk and that he's unlikely to be held in custody awaiting trial. So his lawyers might be able to convince him to voluntarily turn up to enter his plea.


*For example, if the prosecutors decide to not push for extradition as hard as they could.

[Darth Yoshi]

I'm still a bit surprised that Trump is getting indicted over this of all things, but here's hoping this is merely the floodgates opening and that many more will follow.

[bilateralrope]

There are different prosecutors, each working separate cases with minimal coordination between them. I don't think any of them would be inclined to wait for each other.

Though this seems to be the weakest of the cases against Trump.

[LaCroix]

Him being busy fighting cases already underway means that his lawyers are too busy to interfere (much) in the other cases. Or that he needs even more of them, wich, given his habit of not paying them, is a bit of a chore...

And maybe already being in jail when the next cases are brought up also makes things soo much more convenient (less flight risk, less secret underhand meetings, less twitter,...)

[bilateralrope]

And maybe already being in jail when the next cases are brought up also makes things soo much more convenient (less flight risk, less secret underhand meetings, less twitter,...)

Imprisoning Trump is going to be complicated due to his secret service protection. So I don't think he's going to see the inside of a cell before sentencing.

As for tweeting, or whatever you call them on his platform, that just gives him more room to incriminate himself.

[Solauren]

Putting him in jail, or even under house arrest, makes it impossible for him to campaign.

[LadyTevar]

DeSantos is already going spastic on Twitter, calling this politically based.
Gonna really hurt when he has to agree to extradite Trump to NY.

One, why do you keep calling him DeSantos? Two, what makes you think he would if he's in any way involved in the process?

If Trump refused to show, then NY State would have had to sue for Extradition, and DeSantos would have been urged to stop/ignore/fight it, which would have put him in a tight spot politically.

However, latest news from Trump's Lawyers states that Trump *wants* the prep-walk, minus cuffs, so DeSantos is spared the political gauntlet.

And I spell it that way because I thought that's how it was spelled. If its not, meh, don't care, it's close enough people know which fucker I'm talking about

[Rogue 9]

A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee justice, and be found in another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.

DeSantis doesn't have a choice.

[Batman]

Since when do Republicans care what the law says when it says something they don't like?

[Solauren]

The irony of this - it's because Trump paid off his former model lovers from business accounts, and called it business expenses.

If he'd paid them from his personal bank accounts, and not reported it as an expense, but say as a gift, then no one could really say anything about it. Calling it a business expense is fraud. Calling it a gift is 'rich guy giving former/current side girlfriend money'. One is a crime, the other is not.

[Lord Revan]

The irony of this - it's because Trump paid off his former model lovers from business accounts, and called it business expenses.

If he'd paid them from his personal bank accounts, and not reported it as an expense, but say as a gift, then no one could really say anything about it. Calling it a business expense is fraud. Calling it a gift is 'rich guy giving former/current side girlfriend money'. One is a crime, the other is not.

It kind of shows how stupid/greedy Trump is I'm guessing that he called it as business expenses to get a tax reduction for it (that's assuming US has a gift tax and that's enforced on wealthy people).

However Trump in his "genius" didn't figure there might over problems that would come about because of this.

[bilateralrope]

Trump to appear in New York court on Tuesday to answer criminal charges

Joan E Greve in Washington
@joanegreve
Sat 1 Apr 2023 00.47 BST

Details of charges not known as indictment remains under seal, while lawyer says former president will not be placed in handcuffs

Donald Trump and his legal team were preparing for the unprecedented spectacle of an appearance in court on Tuesday of a former US president facing criminal charges.

The indictment of Trump remained under court seal on Friday, with details of the charges awaited. He was braced at his Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, for the forthcoming trip to surrender to the authorities in New York after the surprise news on Thursday night that a grand jury had voted to charge him.

A lawyer representing Trump, Joe Tacopina, said on Friday that he understood from prosecutors that the former president will not be put in handcuffs when he surrenders to the authorities next week.

While Tacopina admitted that the news of the indictment came as a shock to Trump on Thursday, and it was understood that he learned about his fate from the press, Trump continued to attack the investigation of a hush-money scheme during the 2016 presidential election.

After the news broke that the grand jury had voted to indict Trump, Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said almost two hours later that he had contacted Trump’s attorneys to coordinate his surrender.

Trump expects to be arrested and arraigned – called to court to answer charges – on Tuesday afternoon in lower Manhattan, and he plans to plead not guilty to all charges, Tacopina said.

The attorney told ABC News that access to the courthouse would be severely restricted while the arraignment takes place, amid concerns about potential unrest over the unprecedented arrest of a former US president. He predicted that New York authorities would not “allow this to become a circus”.

“We’ll go in there and we’ll proceed to see a judge at some point, plead not guilty, start talking about filing motions, which we will do immediately and very aggressively regarding the legal viability of this case,” Tacopino said.

It remains unclear what specifically Trump has been indicted on, but he may face dozens of charges over his role in a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an extramarital affair with Trump beginning in 2006. Trump has denied the affair, and although he has acknowledged reimbursing his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, for the $130,000 payment to Daniels, he claims no wrongdoing in the case.

On Friday, the Associated Press reported that Trump’s indictment was said to contain multiple charges of falsifying business records, including at least one felony, according to people familiar with the matter, but the indictment itself has not been made public.

Daniels was due to give her first interview post-indictment to the British broadcaster Piers Morgan on Friday evening, but was forced to postpone due to unspecified “security issues”.

As Trump’s legal team prepared for a contentious and potentially lengthy legal battle, the former president continued to attack investigators via social media. In one post criticizing the judge assigned to his case, Trump pledged to appeal any ruling, even though the trial is far from starting.

“They only brought this Fake, Corrupt, and Disgraceful Charge against me because I stand with the American People, and they know that I cannot get a fair trial in New York!” Trump said on Thursday evening.

Trump’s successor has studiously avoided discussing the indictment. As he left the White House for a trip to Mississippi on Friday morning to survey damage from a lethal tornado a week ago, Joe Biden repeatedly told reporters “no comment” when asked for his response.

News of the indictment sent shockwaves around Capitol Hill, as Republicans rushed to Trump’s defense and Democrats reiterated that no one is above the law.

“The pre-eminence of the rule of law is central to the integrity of our democracy. It must be applied equally without fear or favor,” said the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries. “The indictment of a former president is a serious moment for the nation. A jury of Donald Trump’s peers will now determine his legal fate.”

Top Republicans echoed Trump’s claims of political persecution, with the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, accusing Bragg of having “irreparably damaged our country”.

“The American people will not tolerate this injustice, and the House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account,” McCarthy said on Thursday.

Even some of Trump’s opponents in the 2024 Republican presidential primary came to his defense, as Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the UN, accused Bragg of trying to score “political points” by pursuing the case.

“It’s more about revenge than it is about justice,” Haley told Fox News.

Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, who is widely expected to announce his own White House bid in the coming months, called the indictment “an outrage” and “the criminalization of politics in this country”.

Pence’s comments were particularly notable given that Trump supporters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6 2021, called for the vice-president to be hanged over his refusal to disrupt the congressional certification of Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.

The CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer noted that Trump kicked off his campaign rally last weekend in Texas by playing a recording of the national anthem sung by January 6 insurrectionists. Asked whether he was comfortable with that, Pence replied: “No.”

So DeSantis made a lot of noise about preventing Trump's extradition, before he had a chance to even see what was in the indictment. Then Trump surrendered voluntarily.

[Broomstick]

The irony of this - it's because Trump paid off his former model lovers from business accounts, and called it business expenses.

If he'd paid them from his personal bank accounts, and not reported it as an expense, but say as a gift, then no one could really say anything about it. Calling it a business expense is fraud. Calling it a gift is 'rich guy giving former/current side girlfriend money'. One is a crime, the other is not.

It kind of shows how stupid/greedy Trump is I'm guessing that he called it as business expenses to get a tax reduction for it (that's assuming US has a gift tax and that's enforced on wealthy people).

However Trump in his "genius" didn't figure there might over problems that would come about because of this.

In the US any gift over $17,000 is subject to tax. So the "gift" to Ms. Daniels would definitely have been taxed. But in that case it's the recipient who is taxed (because it's their income) rather than the donor.

Clearly, though, Trump wanted it as a "business expense" so he could benefit from it in some manner, specifically, being able to deduct it on his taxes. Or else take it from his campaign fund, so Daniels would be paid not with Trump's own money but by someone else's (in that case, the money from his political donors).

Trump might have been vaguely aware that there could be consequences, but his entire life he's been able to make such consequences go away - he had employees that would take care of such things, he'd throw more money at the problem, he'd use the legal system in various ways to either evade responsibility or bully less wealthy people, and he'd have someone else take the fall for him. He's been doing this since the 1970's. And he got away with it for a very long time because in many respects he was a largish fish in a medium-sized pond.

But then he ran for PotUS and won. I don't think he considered how much that would put him in the spotlight. He also never really understood that being PotUS was not like being CEO of a private company. He clearly chafed any time he bumped up against restrictions and never seemed to understand he had not been elected king but it was only a temporary job that "little people" could remove him from after four years if they didn't like what he was doing. He shrugged off being impeached twice but it should have been a red flag for him that he had really, really pissed off a significant number of people.

Trump has never in his life faced consequences that he couldn't squirm out of. That might be changing.

[bilateralrope]

Donald Trump vows to escalate attacks against Alvin Bragg – sources

The former president was stunned by the indictment at first, but after 24 hours he indicated he wanted to politically ‘rough ’em up’

Hugo Lowell in Washington
@hugolowell
Sun 2 Apr 2023 22.18 BST[/i]

Donald Trump has told advisers and associates in recent days that he is prepared to escalate attacks against the Manhattan prosecutor who resurrected the criminal prosecution into his hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016 now that a grand jury has indicted him.

The former president has vowed to people close to him that he wants to go on the offensive and – in a private moment over the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that demonstrates his gathering resolve – remarked using more colorful language that it was time to politically “rough ’em up”.

Trump had already signaled that he would go after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, weeks before the grand jury handed up an indictment against him on Thursday, saying in pugilistic posts on Truth Social that the prosecution was purely political and accusing Bragg of being a psychopath.

But the latest charged language reflects Trump’s determination to double down on those attacks as he returns to his time-tested playbook of brawling with prosecutors, especially when faced with legal trouble that he knows he cannot avoid, people close to him said.

The episode at Mar-a-Lago came on the sidelines of strategy meetings Trump had with advisers and associates about how to respond to the indictment from a legal and political standpoint, sessions which were described by two sources close to the former president.

The case centers on $130,000 that Trump paid to Daniels through his former lawyer Michael Cohen in the final days of the 2016 campaign. Trump later reimbursed Cohen with $35,000 checks, which were recorded as legal expenses. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal tax evasion and campaign-finance violation charges.

With the indictment under seal until Trump’s scheduled arraignment on Tuesday, the exact charges remained unclear on Sunday, though they are expected to include the falsification of business records and additional charges that elevate what would otherwise be a misdemeanor to a felony.

Trump was initially caught off-guard by the indictment and spent the following 24 hours absorbing the news that was relayed to him by several of his top advisers. Later, at one point, Trump repeated to himself almost incredulously that prosecutors had actually charged him.

The shock had dissipated by the weekend, when Trump’s tone changed and he told his team that he wanted to attack the case and fight the prosecutors. He steadfastly contends he did nothing illegal and won’t accept a plea deal that would force him to admit culpability.

The ex-president’s pugnacious tone has only accelerated in recent days with a series of critical posts about New York state supreme court justice Juan Merchan, to whom the case has apparently been allotted after he presided over a separate matter involving the Trump Organization last year.

On his Truth Social platform, Trump said Merchan had “railroaded” Allen Weisselberg, the former chief executive of the Trump Organization, who on Sunday was in the middle of serving a 100-day sentence in the Rikers Island jail complex after pleading guilty to tax fraud charges in that case.

Referencing Merchan, Trump said: “The Judge ‘assigned’ to my Witch Hunt Case, a ‘Case’ that has NEVER BEEN CHARGED BEFORE, HATES ME”.

Trump has also since pivoted his focus to seeing how he can benefit politically from the indictment, the sources said, and he was encouraged that it had boosted his poll numbers over potential rivals for the Republican nomination who found themselves forced to come to his defense against Bragg, a Democrat.

With a grim fixation on having a mug shot taken, Trump has asked whether his team could print it on T-shirts that could serve as a rallying motif for his supporters – an idea that his advisers have been particularly enthusiastic about.

Trump also spent the weekend reviewing a Yahoo news poll that showed him leading Florida governor Ron DeSantis, whom he considers his closest rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, 57% to 31% in a hypothetical one-on-one contest. The poll also found Trump was attracting the majority of support, at 52%, when pitted against a wider, 10-candidate field.

The polling illustrated the perilous dance for DeSantis and Trump’s other challengers, who have so far struggled to find a way to defend the ex-president strongly enough to ensure the support of his core base in the Republican party without undercutting their pitch as being worthy successors to him.

Trump’s advisers observed over the weekend that DeSantis had struggled in that test when his only response to the indictment was to snap back in line behind the former president, calling the case “the weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda”.

Trump is planning to fight these charges in the "court of public opinion". That seems to be boosting numbers Trump cares about right now. But I can't see it helping him once this case goes into an actual court.

Oh and I expect that Jack Smith is watching. Just in case Trump adds more Federal charges.

[Elfdart]

Just when right-wing media tried to convince the public that they want to step away from Il Douchebag, they show that they just can't quit him now. See, it's not his fault that he tried to be niggardly and thuggish (to the point of cooking the books) towards one of his one-night stands, it's all the fault of George Soros. Translation:

"DA JOOOOOOOOOOOZ!"

So next time the howl-at-the-moon Right gets all worked up when they're rightly dubbed fascists, remember that their main excuse for Trump's misdeeds is to blame a Holocaust survivor.

[LadyTevar]

Donald Trump vows to escalate attacks against Alvin Bragg – sources

Trump is planning to fight these charges in the "court of public opinion". That seems to be boosting numbers Trump cares about right now. But I can't see it helping him once this case goes into an actual court.

Oh and I expect that Jack Smith is watching. Just in case Trump adds more Federal charges.

Making threats to "rough up" a public official isn't really kosher either. I doubt they'll do anything about that, as Trump himself couldn't punch his way out of a paper bag, but his nutso followers are a concern.

[bilateralrope]

Donald Trump vows to escalate attacks against Alvin Bragg – sources

Trump is planning to fight these charges in the "court of public opinion". That seems to be boosting numbers Trump cares about right now. But I can't see it helping him once this case goes into an actual court.

Oh and I expect that Jack Smith is watching. Just in case Trump adds more Federal charges.

Making threats to "rough up" a public official isn't really kosher either. I doubt they'll do anything about that, as Trump himself couldn't punch his way out of a paper bag, but his nutso followers are a concern.

Don't forget about these threats being used to show a pattern of behaviour from Trump when it comes to charges related to Jan 6.

[Elfdart]

Trump's been egging on his followers to commit violent crimes against people who displease him since 2016. If Eric Holder had a functioning brain or balls, Il Douchebag would have been dragged into court immediately for crossing state lines to incite a riot. What people don't get about how fascists come to power is that contrary to popular belief, it's not lost wars or economic crashes that enable their rise to take over. It's seeing a government that is too weak, feckless and crooked to stop them.

[Zaune]

Good thing these particular fash have been undermined by their own massive incompetence, then, because what other aspiring tyrant has been dumb enough to alienate the army in the run-up to a coup attempt?

*sigh* I suppose it's a sign that American democracy must have something going for it if the first serious attempt to get rid of it since at least the 30s was carried out by a bunch of absolute morons...

[Gandalf]

I remember in the Bush II years, when the various right wingers said that if a president was ever indicted, a terrifying wave of right wing violence would sweep the country.

Time to see how that plays out.

[LadyTevar]

Good thing these particular fash have been undermined by their own massive incompetence, then, because what other aspiring tyrant has been dumb enough to alienate the army in the run-up to a coup attempt?

*sigh* I suppose it's a sign that American democracy must have something going for it if the first serious attempt to get rid of it since at least the 30s was carried out by a bunch of absolute morons...

I can't remember where now, but I saw where someone was saying that there was an attempt to get a riot going, but every time one of them tried to start the ball rolling, the others would accuse them of being "government agents", "Anti-Fas", or "trying to get us arrested".