[flagged]
Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
601–610 of 1001 posts
Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
#602Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding from legal eagle on YouTube is that the payment was done illegally. Both in terms of taxes and in terms of how you are allowed to spend money on campaigning (she was hushed to aid the presidential campaign)
> (she was hushed to aid the presidential campaign) It seems more likely that this is pretty routine with Trump and had not much to do with the campaign. I doubt he started sleeping with hot women only after deciding to run for president; and there is probably a lot of money in it for the women. One of the perks of dating billionaires.
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.
Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
#603Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't a federal charge. Biden can't pardon anything.
They’re saying the charge is related to campaign finance violations, isn’t that a federal crime?
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
Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since there is the concept of sealed indictment, why are all the indictments not sealed (or none of them)? I guess this is to preserve the person that is accused (because an accusation is easier to make than to defend, given the visibility decided by the media, supporters, etc)) - do why some are more preserved then others? Since the topic is a hot one, please note that I am from France and have no stakes nor interes…
> 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.
Yes, but when reading the comments I see a lot of US political discussions about whether this is a problem or not, Whether D Trump is ok or not, etc. I am not interested in these and did not want my question about what a seal is to diverge on whether this is a good thing or not to seal (or not seal)
Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
#605I commented on my understanding of the situation on reddit a while ago. Copy/pasting here:
He paid off Stormy Daniels to keep her from talking about their relationship. Paying her to stay silent is 100% legal, there is absolutely no issue with an NDA like that. The illegal part isn't the what, it's the how.
Political campaigning laws set a limited budget for how much money you can spend on campaigning, which is defined as "any payment made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office". Daniels talking about her relationship with Trump is something that could have had a significant impact on Trump's presidential campaign, so paying her to stay quiet is considered a campaign expense. Paying your lawyer for legal advice/representation is not a campaign expense, though, so what happened was that Cohen himself paid Daniels (there's no law against that), and the campaign paid Cohen for "legal expenses" (which aren't considered campaign expenses).
The problem here is that, of course, this was just a way to make Cohen an intermediary for the process of the campaign paying Daniels. This is problem in two ways. First, it goes against the campaign spending limits, so goes against campaign laws. Second, it's a form of falsifying business records.
Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
Half the country thought Hillary Clinton should be arrested for emails. Not a good metric.
“Half” is an obscenely generous estimation.
> “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-...
Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
#607Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know. It feels a lot like the indictment of Al Capone. His lawyers were always concentrating on the big picture but they ignored the small stuff and the government was able to catch him on tax evasion. Getting indictment of any sort can lead to larger ones.
I see this alot. Donald Trump isn't Al Capone,and the analogy fails enormously. Donald Trump is a former president of the United States. He's beloved by his base in quasi-religious way, even across the globe. Italy had parade with a "God-emperor Trump". Trump cannot be treated with like Al Capone. He has run as the anti-establishment candidate, and by god you better have a bulletproof case on him or you have just ang…
> "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...
Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
#608Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding from legal eagle on YouTube is that the payment was done illegally. Both in terms of taxes and in terms of how you are allowed to spend money on campaigning (she was hushed to aid the presidential campaign)
[flagged]
When the village doesn't like the village idiot, the word to use for that sentiment is not "biased".
Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
#609Earlier quoted context omitted.
My understanding from legal eagle on YouTube is that the payment was done illegally. Both in terms of taxes and in terms of how you are allowed to spend money on campaigning (she was hushed to aid the presidential campaign)
> (she was hushed to aid the presidential campaign) It seems more likely that this is pretty routine with Trump and had not much to do with the campaign. I doubt he started sleeping with hot women only after deciding to run for president; and there is probably a lot of money in it for the women. One of the perks of dating billionaires.
Since the affair happened in 2006, I strongly doubt he went back in time to sleep with a porn star.
Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump
#610I've scrolled through the top ~10 or so comments, and none of them, describe or comment on the nature of the charges against Trump. To be fair to the commenters, most stories are vague. The charges relate to hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, but hush money is not a crime. It's also not a crime to have an affair with Stormy Daniels. So the most salacious parts of the story are not what the crime is. My understand…
Is it possible that this would be simply an opening to gain further investigative access? Like how Al Capone was caught for tax issues?