Breaking the vote law
Did you think the Manhattan grand jury was going on hiatus? Surprise! No quiet quitting for these civic servants who sit in secret. Former President Donald Trump has been criminally indicted, apparently for actions surrounding the hush-money payments made to Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election.
Here we go. For the first time, Trump's claims, assertions—and yes, his lies—will have to stand up under oath, in a criminal court. His supporters on Fox and around right-wing media continue to tease violence.
Stormy is very ready to testify in court. The charges could include payments to other women too (there's always a Karen, right?). Trump is reportedly ready to turn himself in next week.
I called up NYU law professor and Just Security co-editor-in-chief Ryan Goodman on Thursday to talk Manhattan DA stuff. Then news broke, so I called him back. Our chat has been edited for length.
We just talked this afternoon. Now it's Thursday night, and I guess we'd better talk again. What do you think?
It's momentous. Never before in American history has anything like this happened. And based on what we know of the case, I think that it was predictable that there would be this indictment.
There's been some reporting of 34 counts, all stemming from falsified business records. If that's the case, what would you make of it?
It suggests that they've probably charged these as felony counts. Felony falsifying business records just requires that the individual committed the acts with the intent to commit or conceal another crime. You don't have to charge the second crime. And you certainly don't have to charge it if the person didn't follow through with it and only had the intent. So it sounds as though that's the structure of the indictment. Thirty-four is a much bigger number than many of us anticipated.
Where would 34 charges come from?
For all we know, it's 34 instances that come out of 11 checks, which we know were signed to Michael Cohen for reimbursements, as falsified income of legal services. And potentially each of those comes with then entering it into the Trump entity books falsely as legal services that that's how one might get 34. Maybe it's three times 11 checks and then the 34th one would be a conspiracy charge.
Does that tell you anything about the strength or the weakness of the case?
I think it might mean that the case is more insulated from some kinds of legal challenges (like whether a state crime can arise from federal election law), but it does suggest that there might be weaknesses in the ability to actually bring a charge for other kinds of crimes. It may be the prosecutors just being conservative, bringing what they know that they can get. And they do not need the jury to agree that these other crimes were committed. Just that there was an intent to commit them.
Some reporting says Trump will turn himself in next week. But what do you think about Ron DeSantis tweeting that he won't participate in an arrest warrant or helping to extradite Trump, the Constitution notwithstanding?
I think it's a terrible statement concerning the rule of law. I can't think of another precedent, certainly in modern history in which a governor said that they would not honor an extradition from another state. If that started to happen in our country, the system would break. But it seems like the statement is made for political purposes. I think he's just trying to signal, but the signal he's sending is terrible.
David Pecker, the former president of American Media, Inc., owner of the National Enquirer, came in to testify in front of the grand jury. Why is David Pecker so important to this case?
Two reasons. One is in setting up the scheme to suppress stories from the women. He does potentially have the same information as Michael Cohen and he can corroborate Michael Cohen.
He needs corroboration!
Yeah. You can't walk into court with just Michael Cohen. Then the second is there appear to be direct conversations and communications between David Pecker and Donald Trump. So that would also be potentially very powerful evidence and it's strong rebuttal evidence. We know from the federal court records that David Pecker and his company agreed and then signed a written statement to acknowledge that it was David Pecker's idea to create the hush money scheme, in August of 2015, right after Trump announced his run for president.
So he's already made statements in record filings with the federal government that describe the entire scheme and the very motive directed towards the 2016 election, which is a key piece of evidence for the prosecution to have to prove.
I feel like all of this is going to be completely forgotten in a little while if obstruction charges come out of a federal grand jury investigating Mar-a-Lago, you know?
I think that's such a good point. Six months from now we might look back and this is a footnote that pales in comparison to potential Justice Department indictments. I think it's very likely that there'll be a Mar-a-Lago indictment. And more likely than not something surrounding Jan. 6 as well, plus the effort to overturn the vote in Georgia. And just to add one more to the equation: There's still a potential ongoing Manhattan DA criminal investigation into Trump's alleged false statements to banks. That's a much bigger financial investigation that Alvin Bragg inherited. He promised the public that he would reveal when he decided to either indict or drop the investigations. One has to presume that's ongoing and that also might make all this pale in comparison.
It's officially indictment season. Sign your friends up for Breaking the Vote!
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