Trump discussed all the details of financial crimes in the Oval Office of the White House
For the new issue of Trifecta, I undertake to carefully study the accusation against Trump so that there are no gray spots (yesterday, after a quick read, for example, the story about Trump’s illegitimate child remained unclear to me: I understand that the publisher of National magazine paid the former doorman of Trump Tower for his silence Enquirer, but the money was never reimbursed and it is unclear why the prosecutor’s office would indicate this; and there is also some uncertainty with the payment to Karen McDougal). So far, the weaknesses of the prosecution include the following: the prosecutor's office needs to prove that Trump's actions were aimed at defraud/depriving someone of something through deception. And here the problems of legal theory begin. Judicial practice is contradictory, and sometimes requires that this defraud be financial (what is called “self-interest” in Russian criminal law), and sometimes it is understood very broadly. Whether the jury will agree that hiding negative data from voters is defraud, I don’t know. I assume that the defense will try to move the conversation into a legal direction and insist on dismissing the case due to the fact that there is no crime, and the prosecutor’s office will refer to the fact that this is a question of fact and it is the jury that must decide whether there is defraud.
The second way for the prosecutor's office is to prove a particular type of defraud: that the falsification covered up another crime. The indictment says rather sparingly: the payment of $130 “was illegal,” however, the prosecution does not indicate which law this payment violated. Yesterday at a press conference, the prosecutor said that the law does not oblige the prosecutor's office to disclose all the details at this stage, that is, some surprises await the defense. But only time will tell how serious these surprises will be.
So, the essence of the accusation against Trump. 34 episodes are related to the processing of payments to Trump’s “fixer” Michael Cohen. We are talking about paying $130 to an unnamed woman (but we know that this is Stormy Daniels) and $000 to another unnamed woman (they write that this is the former Playboy model Karen McDougal), as well as reimbursement to the lawyer for these payments (the number of episodes is related to the fact that the compensation was in parts).
They charge this article:
§ 175.10 Falsifying business records in the first degree
A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.
According to the article, the crime is not just falsification of business records, but committed with the purpose of defraud/defraud someone of something, including the purpose of committing or concealing another crime. Prosecutors insist that in the Trump case, the misrepresentations were made to prevent the publication of negative information to improve the chances of the election.
The essence of the scheme is simple: Cohen paid 130 of his own, and reimbursement of expenses occurred through a trust created by Trump during his presidency and through the Trump Organization. Moreover, knowing that this money was not for legal services, but a reimbursement of payment for silence, the accounting statements indicated that the money was paid to Cohen for legal services (and the amount was sharply increased so that Cohen did not lose money on taxes).
An interesting thing: the case involves an audio recording of conversations between Cohen and Trump, where they quite openly discussed all the details of payments to women and reimbursement of payments to a lawyer even before the election, and the scheme was finally approved in the Oval Office of the White House and in emails.
Author: Igor Slabykh
