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Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

nytimes.com

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Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#711

Post by ChicagoDave »

brutus1213 wrote: post #677
pdpi wrote: post #605

I 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 defin…

Not a lawyer, nor am I American. No horse in this except maybe a citizen of the world. This seems like a weak case to me. For a former president and polarizing figure, you would think the bar on prosecution would be air tight. If he goes to jail for a crime the population (or his support base) considers is trivial or if he does not get convicted, it raises Trump's stock to the stratosphere. Perhaps if he goes to jail…

[flagged]

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#712

Post by time0ut »

bsuvc wrote: post #112
jasoneckert wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My knowledge of political events is sparse because I haven't dedicated the time it takes to acquire the prerequisite knowledge. However, I'd be interested in learning more from those here who do have that knowledge and are willing to share perspective on these sort of events. In general, I think it's valuable to be curious about things you're not necessarily interested in.

Everything you say can be true and it doesn't change the fact the HN would be worse because of it. HN is a place I come to escape the rest of the internet. I hope it doesn't get ruined by politics, like everything else in the world seems to have been.

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.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#713

Post by tootie »

pdpi wrote: post #605

I 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 defin…

Paying her to stay silent is not 100% legal when it's done for the direct benefit of political campaign and not disclosed.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#714

Post by meragrin_ »

wodenokoto wrote: post #459
marcell wrote: post #389

I'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…

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)

There was so much crap spewed about Trump this would not have affected the campaign in any way. If all the other crap didn't damage, why would they believe that would? He wanted to keep his private life private. She wasn't paid off until the month before the election. It was VERY clear by that point the affair would have little affect on the election.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#715

Post by random_upvoter »

pdpi wrote: post #605

I 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 defin…

If I'm not mistaken Obama's campaign was fined for the same offense -- non-disclosed campaign distributions.

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/01/07/obama-campai...

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#716

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

marcell wrote: post #389

I'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…

The indictment is sealed so the actual charges aren't public, yet. Everyone is just speculating.

Interesting items:

- This is from the NY State courts so it is NY State laws in play (likely campaign finance laws), not Federal. If it were Federal it would be prosecuted by Federal attorney's in a Federal court.

- A Grand Jury (for those that don't know) is composed of citizens, about 16-20 or something, that proceed like a court case understanding laws and evidence presented, including witness interviews, and the result here is that they chose to indict. This means that 12 (or more) citizens decided there was enough evidence that specific laws might have been broken to bring charges against him.

- I believe (common sense here) that campaign finance funds have to be kept separate from personal or business funds, as in different accounts. Depending on the laws in various states the laws may require disclosure forms of funds into/out of the accounts, etc.

Its likely that this is technical and could be traceable - if the funds for hush money came from a campaign finance account through his attorney and noted as such its probably not a case that is worth trying. That doesn't appear to be illegal, its a (morally questionable) campaign line item. If the source of the funds was from a personal/business account then that could violate campaign finance laws by using the wrong account. This kinda sounds like how they got Al Capone on tax evasion and not the myriad of other potential crimes. I'm not comparing the people, just my layman knowledge of the cases.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#717

Post by pc_edwin »

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.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#718

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

pc_edwin wrote: post #717

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).…

The alternative take here is that this is saying no one is above the law. That ISN'T the sort of thing you see in corrupt/unstable institutions.

A lot of Americans seem super comfortable with the idea that their leaders and aristocrats aren't supposed to be subject to the law.

This may be one of those times that there's actually enough of a case that judicial branch feels it can take a shot at one of their betters and actually hit. We won't know until things are unsealed.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#719

Post by meragrin_ »

NullInvictus wrote: post #600
guelo wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That issue was resolved when the FEC did an investigation and issued a fine. There was accountability. Why should there be no accountability for Trump?

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. “You could pin this on a large percentage of politicians”. Yes, please. It will in fact be good for the country. I don’t care what party they come from.

> 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.

Re: Grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump

#720

Post by robbiep »

noduerme wrote: post #658

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 leader…

I’m not sure if you’ve spoken to many people from other countries in the last 10 years, but america is absolutely viewed as a third world country (masquerading as a first world country) by much of the rest of the developed world
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