They are leaving nothing to chance. There is a reason Merchans jury instructions are basically….”if one of you doesn’t like Trump, that’s enough to convict”
They don’t care if it will get overturned because of the absurdity of the judges decisions. They just care about being able to say he is a felon. Even if it ends up being…the once convicted felon former president.
It’s gross, and stalinist. Any other country did this and these leftists would be screaming corruption.
@kalimgoodman - just tagging so you see this..
DJT is potentially being thrown in jail for a crime he was neither accused of, nor convicted of, nor did he ever get a chance to defend himself against.
1) The accounting issues are misdemeanors. Minor offenses with no victim, no attempt at tax evasion, no major issue to anyone. It's how a private business classified a business/legal expense on their own books.
2) The "underlying crime" was never defined. There is no charge. In fact, the FEC and DOJ knew about the payment and declined to prosecute, indicating that there probably isn't a crime there at all (you think Garland wouldn't pounce if he could be the one to take Trump down?).
3) Even if there was a campaign finance violation, like we saw with Obama (biggest campaign finance violator in history) and Hillary (the Steele dossier was paid for with campaign funds), the penalty is a fine, not jail time. It's not a felony.
To call an NDA election interference is laughable and essentially puts all the power in the accuser's hands. In other words, if you wanted to take a candidate out just find a porn star/stripper/hottie they were once in a room with to "come forward" with an extortion lie, and there'd be little choice but to drop out of the race.
Lastly, if this was a tax issue, don't you think the IRS would have found it? They audit him every year. Regardless, it would be a federal tax issue, not a state one, and this court would have no jurisdiction over either the tax or campaign finance violations.
Ergo, DJT is being thrown in jail for committing a misdemeanor "in furtherance" of another crime that isn't defined, he couldn't defend himself against, and probably doesn't exist because none of the governing bodies responsible for enforcing those crimes saw one. None of this is new news, and nothing new could have been exposed in this trial because the crime was never specified.
I just can't imagine how anyone can say this is fair or just.