Following his recent conviction, Donald Trump said his trial was “CheatingTrump is often prone to overheated statements, but in this case he may have understated it.
This was perhaps the most unfair trial this country has ever seen. Irrelevant and highly biased While denying evidence, he prohibited strong, admissible, and relevant exculpatory evidence. Judge Juan Marchand unfairly favored the prosecution, granting virtually all of the State’s objections and curtly denying the defense objections.
There has been evidence of a conspiracy to promote or sabotage the election, but Trump is the victim, not the perpetrator.
And to conclude this testimony of unpleasant prejudice: Jury Instructions “The jury instructions were tantamount to instructing the jurors to convict Trump. In fact, the jury instructions did not set out any issue on which a reasonable juror could challenge a conviction.”
First, let’s take a 10,000-foot look at the conduct at issue while adopting the prosecution’s theory of Trump’s motivation: Trump and his “fixer” Michael Cohen paid porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her from revealing a one-night stand with Daniels 10 years ago, when she was not a candidate at the time. Trump essentially instructed Cohen to sort things out, but gave no explanation for how. But Trump clearly knew that Cohen would be paying her as a non-disclosure agreement reward.
Before the 2016 election, Cohen created an LLC, self-funded it, and paid Daniels $130,000. After the election, he used the LLC to bill the Trump Organization for $420,000 in 12 equal monthly installments, to be repaid under an “advisory agreement.” written The facts are clear: although there were oral and implied agreements to repay “sums” from which Mr Cohen would be paid service fees and taxes, no advisory agreement was ever executed.
The Trump Organization listed the repayments as “legal expenses” and sometimes under a “consulting agreement.” It is easy to see that these entries on the record were not entirely false, because the payments were in fact legal expenses and Cohen listed his invoices as seeking payment under a “consulting agreement.”
The statute in question punishes “falsifying” business records with “intent to defraud.” For falsification to be a felony, the intent to defraud must include an intent to commit or conceal another crime.
Oddly, there was no instruction to define “forgery,” which would have included a definition and materiality requirement. The court instructed that intent to defraud is different from mere forgery in that there is no intention to deceive anyone and deprive them of anything, and it may simply be a “general intent.” What does this mean?
Furthermore, the judge did not give any instruction that there must be willfulness or specific intent in committing the crime, which is the standard instruction that the accused must know that their actions are unlawful.
“Intent to defraud” must also include the intent to conceal or commit another crime (i.e., knowingly) to constitute the felony charged, but the judge also instructed that the prosecution “does not have to prove that another crime was actually committed, aided, or concealed.”
Huh?
Thus, a jury may convict merely by finding an innocent and immaterial false fact that was not knowingly forged or intended to deceive anyone and that was not followed by another crime. Actual a crime or its concealment.
Prejudiced hearsay evidence
The “other crime” (which need not be committed) is New York State Election Law Section 17-152, a “conspiracy” to “promote or interfere with” an election by “unlawful means.”
But the court did not explain to the jury the definition of “conspiracy,” which typically means an agreement to commit a specific illegal act and taking at least one overt step toward doing so. The jury heard none of this. Why? Because such an agreement necessarily means that there was collusion. Specific illegal activities Agreed. But the court acknowledged that the “unlawful means” could be any one of several illegal acts and did not have to agree to a specific illegal act. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, pick any one!
Because any political campaign involves individuals who agree to advance or hinder an election, a key question in this case is whether Trump and Cohen knowingly used “unlawful means” to silence Daniels. Bill Clinton’s campaign is suspected of silencing women at one time or another, but is George Stephanopoulos a felon?
The Federal Election Commission found no violations, and neither did former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, a well-regarded Democrat. So how did “progressive” prosecutors and a biased court mislead a jury into finding a crime when none existed?
Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice Cohen indictedCohen was rightly found guilty of bank fraud in connection with the bankrupt taxi medallion business. To smear Trump, prosecutors added an unjustified additional charge of false federal election crimes to Cohen’s legitimate guilty plea. They also accused David Pecker, owner of the National Enquirer, of “fraudulent conduct.”Capture and kill“I bought the obscene stories and we agreed in writing. do not have Charge Mr. Pecker with election crimes, falsely implying that a crime was committed.
Cohen’s plea and Pecker’s non-prosecution agreement (prejudicial hearsay evidence proving lies that no reasonable court would admit) were both admitted into evidence, leading a reasonable jury to believe that election crimes had been proven. But that was not the case.
The Court also admitted a Wall Street Journal reporter’s sensational and overblown articles suggesting election fraud, but found the articles to be hearsay evidence based on unreasonably biased speculation and inadmissible on several grounds.
But when Trump’s defense team presented testimony from a top election law expert — perfectly proper expert opinion evidence — that there were no election crimes (which was the essence of the charges against Trump), Judge Marchan barred it.
Cohen’s former lawyer Robert Costello As Cohen sought to testify about Trump’s repeated admissions that he committed no crimes, Marchant was openly hostile, blocking him from delivering some of the most damaging testimony for the prosecution.
Pick a crime, any crime
Just in case the jury wasn’t convinced the court was directing them to find a crime, the court told them that “Michael Cohen is an accomplice” because “under the laws of our country, there is evidence that he participated in a crime based on the conduct contained in the allegations against the defendant in this case.” How could the jury possibly acquit Trump after this absurd instruction?
The court instructed that Cohen’s testimony required corroboration, but then specifically instructed that corroboration did not have to prove that the defendant was guilty or that a crime had been committed. In fact, all that was needed was evidence “consistent with the testimony of an accomplice,” even if “itself did not tend to link the defendant to the commission of the crime charged.”
Is that “harmony” a perfectly legal desire to silence Stormy Daniels? It seems like it is, but it’s not a crime. Apparently the court did not call for Cohen’s testimony, as it should have done. As for Trump’s guilt.
Again, conspiracy necessarily implies an agreement to commit an illegal act, but the court allowed the jury to choose one of three possible illegal acts even though there was no evidence that any was agreed upon, much less that there was any willful intent or specific intent.
One of the three illegal acts is More than $2,700 per Federal lawThe court instructed that the donations could be “loans or advances,” which logically means that donors, like Cohen, are campaign creditors who leave their debts unpaid over a period of time.
And, of course, there are state court judges who guide federal law. Unconstitutional.
The second possible offence listed is false tax records. Marchan said this could be something other than a false tax return, with no further definition. So, as a circular offence, any false business record would seem to suffice, as the first false record could now become the second offence contemplated by the first offence.
Just in case this circular reasoning option wasn’t obvious to the jury, the court instructed that the second offense could simply be false business records, which is very similar to the first predicate offense. To ensure the jury got this point, Marchan specifically listed Cohen’s LLC documents as “false records” that could constitute “unlawful means.” However, these records were only some of the related documents in the original (allegedly) false business records charged. Thus, per the judge’s instructions, some of the allegedly false set of records could be the second offense that the remaining set of records was intended to commit. Circular reasoning, right?
The real conspiracy
Ultimately, any conscientious juror would have an extremely difficult time even considering acquitting Trump due to the deliberate influence of inadmissible evidence, judicial hostility toward the defense, and biased and improper instructions.
The prosecution, rejected by Cyrus Vance, was resurrected by former U.S. Attorney Matthew Colangelo, who was apparently sent to New York by Merrick Garland to engineer the revival of the prosecution rejected by the previous conscientious district attorney.
So a conspiracy to facilitate or prevent the election has been proven. But Trump is the victim, not the perpetrator. Rather, the perpetrators are those who perpetrated this false accusation, a show trial the likes of which Stalin or Beria never dreamed of. This is a sad day for honest judges across the nation, and an even sadder day for our torn apart country.
